Word.ws English Dictionary

alienation of affection

alienation of affection noun: estrangement or loss of affection between two people who have a claim on each other's affections (such as two spouses or a parent and child) that is willfully caused by interference from a third party.

Noun

alienation of affection (uncountable)

  1. Estrangement or loss of affection between two people who have a claim on each other's affections (such as two spouses or a parent and child) that is willfully caused by interference from a third party.
    • An action for alienation of affection by enticing away does not lie against one who has not enticed the abandoning spouse away, or who has not by his wrongful conduct brought about or contributed to the estrangement, and hence it does not lie where the abandoning spouse acts of his or her free will...1993, J. Cezar S. Sangco, Philippine Law on Torts and Damages - Volume 2, page 838
    • The first four points relate to the trial court's dismissal of Mr. Thornburg's claim against the defendants for alienation of affection.2007, Philip Chase, 25 Doctrines of Law You Should Know, page 23

Questions about alienation of affection

What does alienation of affection mean?
Alienation of affection means estrangement or loss of affection between two people who have a claim on each other's affections (such as two spouses or a parent and child) that is willfully caused by interference from a third party.
What part of speech is alienation of affection?
Alienation of affection is a noun.

Words near alienation of affection in the dictionary

  1. alienatedly
  2. alienates
  3. alienating
  4. alienatingly
  5. alienation
  6. alienation of affection
  7. alienation of affections
  8. alienations
  9. alienator
  10. alienators
  11. alienatress

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: alienation of affection (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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