2. Belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange. See Synonyms at foreign. 3. Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature: emotions alien to her temperament.
n, pl -thens or -then. 1. (Alternative Belief Systems) a person who does not acknowledge the God of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam; pagan. 2. an uncivilized or barbaric person. 3. (Alternative Belief Systems) the heathen (functioning as plural) heathens collectively.
bourgeoisie [(boor-zhwah-zee)] In general, the middle class. Applied to the Middle Ages, it refers to townspeople, who were neither nobles nor peasants. In Marxism it refers to those who control the means of production and do not live directly by the sale of their labor. Karl Marx distinguished between the âhauteâ (high) bourgeoisie (industrialists and financiers) and the âpetiteâ (small or âpettyâ) bourgeoisie (shopkeepers, self-employed artisans, lawyers).