Alien. Originating from the Latin word alienus. Meaning “belonging to another”. But what does it mean nowadays? Well according to the Oxford dictionary it literally means “A hypothetical or fictional being from another world”. But is that the only meaning to it? Alien is a very ambiguous word. It has many meanings all revolving around the idea/thought of foreign. We normally use alien in the meaning of an extraterrestrial being. Like “ According to the pentagon, proof of alien life has been seen and supported by astronomers”. This word can be used in many connotations other than that of an extraterrestrial being.The word alien does not only mean hypothetical or fictional being but it is also used to describe foreign ideas, thoughts,people and things.

Alien ideas. What does that mean? To me it means ideas that are not thought of, different from everyone, foreign to what we know. It seems odd to say an alien idea but it can serve a real purpose in describing something unknown, foreign. These ideas are what advance society. They are always thought as impossible and unrealistic at first but prove to be crucial to the development of society. With the increase of alien ideas our society will only advance in a positive way to make it a better place to live. An example of this would be Cappernicus’s idea that the Earth revolves around the sun as an alien idea to society. At that time it was thought that the Earth was in the middle of the universe and that the sun and all the other planets revolved around the earth. This idea that Cappernicus brought up was totally alien and never heard of at that time in society. Just because his idea wasn’t something anyone thought of or understood , it was marked alien and put aside until other people backed up his idea. But in the end all alien ideas will somehow prove itself to be true and make us understand our world and understand our society better.

Alien thoughts. Can thoughts be alien? Yes, it can! We can define alien thoughts by labeling a thought or suggestion someone had as alien, or foreign,unheard of, not known, original. Everything we have on this planet is due to alien thoughts. A thought leads to an idea which then leads to an action which leads to a result. This could be used if someone is daydreaming and they go into alien thoughts such as thinking of something that no one has thought of. Another way of describing this would be “shower thoughts”, paradox thoughts that no one thinks of. An example of this would be when Steve Jobs thought of the idea of creating an iPhone. At that time his thought was alien to society because no one had ever thought of a touch screen phone. This alien thought has revolutionized the world as we know it and this alien thought was the start to it.

Alien people. This can have many different interpretations. Some include immigrants, foreign substances in the body, being alienated from society etc. People immigrating to different countries from their home country are labeled as aliens. This is just a generic term used by many to describe immigrants. The next form of this is “alien in people” which are foreign substances in our body. Examples of this would be viruses, bacteria, drugs,etc. One of the biggest aliens in our bodies currently is COVID-19. Doctors and health care professionals label this virus as alien because of all its unknowns. Since we don’t know much about it we categorize it as alien substances. The last form of alien people are people who are either alienated from society or alienating themselves from society. Those who are alienated from society are those who are pushed away from society and are unknown. A good example of this would be criminals. We tend to alienate them due to their past and we have a prejudice against them. We stereotype them as people who are bad and rude and uncivilized. Next are those people who have alienated themselves from society. We can also say “living off the grid”. These people purposely move away from society. They can do this for many reasons such as cleansing, meditating, gaining a new perspective or simply just not wanting to be a part of society with these ideals and morals. 

Next would be alien things. This can be described as objects and items that were newly invented and were new to our eyes. This is very relevant to today's day and age. We live in a society where there is something new and unseen that comes upon the market all the time. In 1908 Hebert Ford invented the car. At the time the car was an alien thing. It was new to people as they haven’t seen an invention like this before.This alien thing has made transportation so much easier for everyone in the future generations.

In conclusion we normally use the word alien as a generic term to describe extraterrestrial beings such as Martians etc. But through the evidence and explanation through the essay we see that the word alien means so much more than extraterrestrial beings.It means foreign, not known, not understood, something not heard off. Alien is an adjective and noun and can be used to describe many different things. As written above we can use it to describe people, thoughts, ideas and much more. What is an Alien? A hypothetical or fictional being from another world? No, it is so much more than that. Alien could be “belonging to a foreign country or nation”. Or it could be “unfamiliar and disturbing or distasteful”. Or “A plant or animal species originally introduced from another country and later naturalized”. So what is the actual earning of Alien. That would be up to the author and context of the sentence