for·eign / ˈfôrən; ˈfär-/ • adj. 1. of, from, in, or characteristic of a country or language other than one's own: a foreign language. ∎  dealing with or relating to other countries: foreign policy. ∎  of or belonging to another district or area. ∎  coming or introduced from outside: the quotation is a foreign element imported into the work. ∎  (of a law or restriction) outside the local jurisdiction.2. strange and unfamiliar: I suppose this all feels pretty foreign to you. ∎  (foreign to) not belonging to or characteristic of: crime and brutality are foreign to our nature and our country.DERIVATIVES: for·eign·ness n.

foreign foreign body an object or piece of extraneous matter that has entered the body by accident or design.
foreign devil in China, a foreigner, especially a European, a translation of Chinese (faan) kwai ló ‘(foreign) devil fellow’; the term is recorded in English from the mid 19th century.
Foreign Legion a military formation of the French army founded in the 1830s to fight France's colonial wars. Composed, except for the higher ranks, of non-Frenchmen, the Legion was famed for its audacity and endurance. Its most famous campaigns were in French North Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although its original purpose has been lost, it is still in existence, in greatly reduced form.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Foreign Legion provided the background for a number of romantic British adventure stories, as Ouida's Under Two Flags (1867) and P. G. Wren's Beau Geste (1924), in which upper-class Englishmen wrongly suspected of crime joined the ranks of the Legion under an alias.

see also ethical foreign policy.

foreign †out of doors (rare); pert. to another, alien; pert. to another region, not in one's own land XIV; not domestic or native XV. —OF. forain, forein, -e :- Rom. *forānus, f. L. forās acc. pl., forīs loc. pl. of *fora, var. of forēs DOOR.
Hence foreigner XV.

FOREIGN

That which belongs to, or operates in accordance with, another nation, territory, state, or jurisdiction, as in the case of nonresident trustees, corporations, or persons.