Foreign
Foreign adjective - Being, relating to, or characteristic of a country other than one's own.
Not native and foreign are semantically related. in experience topic. In some cases you can use "Not native" instead an adjective "Foreign".
Nearby Word: foreigner
Not native
Foreign and not native are semantically related. Sometimes you can use "Foreign" instead an adjective phrase "Not native".
Mutual synonyms
Related pairs
- alien and foreign
- alien and not native
- outlandish and foreign
- outlandish and not native
- distant and foreign
- distant and not native
- outside and foreign
- outside and not native
- extraneous and foreign
- extraneous and not native
- unknown and foreign
- unknown and not native
- extrinsic and foreign
- extrinsic and not native
Both terms in one sentence
- Foreign characters may pop up in fiction, but often regular characters who are not native (to the country the work is set in) tend to have native ethnicity somewhere in their family.
Source: But Not Too Foreign -
Note that neither the plant nor the invaders need to actually come from another planet; "alien" in its original sense simply refers to something foreign and/or not native.
Source: Alien Kudzu -
Kalash93 uses this trope a fair amount when dealing with foreign languages, particularly when the characters are not native English speakers.
Source: Poirot Speak
Cite this Source
Not native and Foreign. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 22, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/foreign/not_native
Foreign & Not native. N.p., 2016. Web. 22 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/foreign/not_native>.
Not native or Foreign. 2016. Accessed July 22, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/foreign/not_native.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "foreign" and "not native" have occurred on timeline