étrangères

Étrangères is the feminine plural form of the French adjective étranger and the feminine plural noun étrangère. It denotes women who are foreign to a given country or context. As an adjective, it appears in phrases such as des femmes étrangères or une destination étrangère. As a noun, l’étrangère refers to a foreign woman, with the plural les étrangères. In everyday usage, the term describes people who are not natives or citizens of the place in question; context determines whether it refers to nationality, language, or cultural affiliation.

Origin and form: étranger comes from Latin extrānus meaning external or foreign. The feminine forms étrangère and Étrangères reflect gender and number in French morphology.

Usage and nuance: The term is neutral in descriptive contexts, but in certain discourses it can carry connotations of otherness or difference. In legal or administrative language, non-citizens are often described with gendered forms such as étranger or étrangère, depending on the subject, or more neutral terms may be used in official texts. In culture and media, Étrangères may appear as a title or within titles for works addressing migration, identity, or cross-cultural encounters.

See also: étranger, étrangère.