abalienate
/æbˈeɪl.jəˌneɪt/
abalienate means to make another's that which was once yours; to transfer the title of from one to another; to alienate. It carries an Arena rating of 1406, earned across 9 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, abalienate ranks #1,582 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #1,915 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #4,460 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #6,040 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
abalienate is pronounced /æbˈeɪl.jəˌneɪt/.
Why “abalienate” is a great word
To transfer the title or ownership of property to another, a formal act of legal conveyance. From Latin abaliēnāre, from ab- ("away from") + aliēnāre ("to alienate, estrange"), from aliēnus ("foreign, of another"), from alius ("other"). First attested in English in the 1550s. Unlike "alienate"—which spans both property and personal estrangement—or "bequeath," which implies a posthumous gift, to abalienate is the specific, inter vivos mechanics of title passing under civil law. It is the dry scratch of a quill on vellum, the cold weight of a seal pressed into wax, and the silent shift of a deed from one strongbox to another—the civilized ritual by which what was mine becomes, irrevocably, another's.
Etymology
From Latin abaliēnātus, perfect passive participle of abaliēnō (“alienate; remove”); from ab- (“by, from; away”) + aliēnō (“alienate, estrange”); from aliēnus (“foreign, alien”), from alius (“other, another”). Equivalent to ab- + alienate.
verb
- To make another's that which was once yours; to transfer the title of from one to another; to alienate.e.g.“Thereat the holy mother took grief; for, if I died before my profession, what would become of the goodly hereditaments that were to be abalienated to the monastery.” — 1861, Anne Manning, The chronicle of Ethelfled, page 153:
- To estrange in feeling; to cause alienation of.e.g.“[…] serves for nothing else than to abalienate the Infidels from the Christian Church.” — 1698, A voyage to the East-Indies, page 43:
- To to cause loss or perversion of intellect.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.