ostranenie

[ aw-strah-nuh-nee ]

noun

1. defamiliarization.

Word History and Origins

Origin of ostranenie¹

1917; < Russian; coined by Viktor Shklovsky, Russian writer and literary critic

Example Sentences

Artistic estrangement — originally ostranenie, a word coined by the Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky — is sometimes translated as “defamiliarization.”

From New York Times

For Shklovsky, ostranenie occurs when a writer creates “a special way of experiencing an object, to make one not ‘recognize’ it but ‘see’ it.”

From New York Times