1510s, "transfer to the ownership of another;" 1540s, "make estranged" (in feelings or affections), from Latin alienatus, past participle of alienare "to make another's, part with; estrange, set at variance," from alienus "of or belonging to another person or place," from alius "another, other, different" (from PIE root *al- (1) "beyond"). Related: Alienated; alienating.
In Middle English the verb was simply alien, from Old French aliener and directly from Latin alienare. It is attested from mid-14c. in theology, "estrange" (from God, etc.; in past participle aliened); late 14c. as "break away (from), desert;" c. 1400 in law, "transfer or surrender one's title to property or rights."
"following each other by turns, reciprocal," 1510s, from Latin alternatus "one after the other," past participle of alternare "to do first one thing then the other; exchange parts," from alternus "one after the other, alternate, in turns, reciprocal," from alter "the other" (see alter).
Alternate means "by turns;" alternative means "offering a choice." Both imply two kinds or things. Alternation is the process of two things following one another regularly by turns (as night and day); an alternative is a choice of two things, the acceptance of one implying the rejection of the other. Related: Alternacy.
1510s, "condition of being at one (with others)," a sense now obsolete, from atone + -ment. The theological meaning "reconciliation" (of man with God through the life, passion, and death of Christ) is from 1520s; that of "satisfaction or reparation for wrong or injury, propitiation of an offended party" is from 1610s.
1510s, from backward with adverbial genitive -s. Figurative phrase bend over backwards is recorded from 1901.
also barn-yard, 1510s, from barn + yard (n.1). Figurative of coarse or uncivilized behavior from 1920.
The very speeches in which Jefferson and Lincoln spoke of their hope for the future are incomprehensible to most of the voters of that future, since the vocabulary and syntax of the speeches are more difficult—more obscure—than anything the voters have read or heard. For when you defeat me in an election simply because you were, as I was not, born and bred in a log cabin, it is only a question of time until you are beaten by someone whom the pigs brought up out in the yard. The truth that all men are politically equal, the recognition of the injustice of fictitious differences, becomes a belief in the fictitiousness of differences, a conviction that it is reaction or snobbishness or Fascism to believe that any individual differences of real importance can exist. [Randall Jarrell, "The Obscurity of Poetry," 1953]
"heap or pile," 1510s, from Old Norse bingr "heap." Also used from early 14c. as a word for bin, perhaps from notion of "place where things are piled."
"detached fort blocking a landing, mountain pass, etc., 1510s, of uncertain origin; perhaps from Middle Dutch blokhuis, German Blockhaus, French blockhaus (which is from one of the German words), all from 16c.; see block (v.1). Later "building with an overhanging upper story with loopholes for firing through" (often a square of logs serving as a fort in rough country), which seems to connect it to block (n.1). For second element, see house (n.).
