2. Belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange. See Synonyms at foreign. 3. Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature: emotions alien to her temperament.
n, pl -thens or -then. 1. (Alternative Belief Systems) a person who does not acknowledge the God of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam; pagan. 2. an uncivilized or barbaric person. 3. (Alternative Belief Systems) the heathen (functioning as plural) heathens collectively.
The terms 'heathen' and 'pagan' are synonymous and interchangeable, and refer to any of those religions practised in the earliest phases of a nation's or people's history. One feature common to all the earliest forms of religion known to Man is polytheism, the belief in many gods and goddesses.