ETYM French aliénation, Latin alienatio, from alienare, from alienare. Related to Alienate.
Sense of isolation, powerlessness, and therefore frustration; a feeling of loss of control over one's life; a sense of estrangement from society or even from oneself. As a concept it was developed by German philosophers G W F Hegel and Karl Marx; the latter used it as a description and criticism of the condition that developed among workers in capitalist society.
The term has also been used by non-Marxist writers and sociologists (in particular Emile Durkheim in his work Suicide 1897) to explain unrest in factories and to describe the sense of powerlessness felt by groups such as young people, black people, and women in Western industrial society.
1. Separation resulting from hostility; SYN. estrangement.
2. The feeling of being alienated from other people; SYN. disaffection, estrangement.