Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The state of being different, especially with respect to one's perception of one's identity within a culture; otherness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being other or different.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare The state or quality of being other; a being otherwise.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun philosophy, anthropology Otherness; the entity in contrast to which an identity is constructed.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French altérité, otherness, Late Latin alteritās, Latin alter, other; see al- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • JM advocates universal alterity

    August 30, 2010

  • Despite the proliferation of disability studies (DS) in the USA and Britain over the last three decades, anthropology—for a discipline committed to understanding alterity, has contributed surprisingly little to the study of disability.

    February 17, 2018

  • In times of great want and austerity

    Comparisons pump our prosperity.

    We’re pleased to discover

    A more wretched other

    And comfort ourselves in alterity.

    October 24, 2018