xeno-, xen-, -xenic, -xenism, -xenist, -xenous, -xeny

(Greek: foreign, foreigner; alien; different; extraneous; strange, stranger; and by extension, guest)

The "x" in xeno- is pronounced "z"; "zeno". Greeks are said to have considered any stranger a "guest" and modern Greek includes xenodocheion a "guest house" or "house for guests" or its modern version of "hotel".

The etymological meaning usually denotes some aspect of a relationship involving guests or visitors of some kind.

xenogeny
xenoglossia
1. In psychic research, the alleged power of a person to communicate with others in a language which he/she has never learned.
2. The knowledge of a language which supposedly has never geen studied by certain people.
xenoglossy
A paranormal phenomenon in which a person is able to speak a language that he or she could not have acquired by natural means.

An example would be a someone who speaks French fluently and like a native, but who has never studied French, never been to a French-speaking country, nor associated with French-speakers; would be considered to be an example of xenoglossy.

xenograft
xenolith
xenologer
Someone who studies the alien itself.
xenology
xenomancy
Divination by observing the first stranger who appears.
xenomania, xenomaniac
An insane fancy for or obsessive interest in foreigners or for things foreign.
xenomenia
xenomorphic
A reference to an unusual form or having a strange form or shape.
xenomorphosis
In geology, the texture of igneous rocks in which the crystals are not bounded by their own crystal faces and whose forms are impressed upon them by adjacent preexisting crystals.
xenon
xenonosocomiophobia (s) (noun), xenonosocomiophobias (pl)
An apprehension of foreign pickpocket specialists, which should not be considered a strange anxiety: When Adam and his family were traveling in Mexico, they had what is called xenonosocomiophobia because many thieves are known to live there, according to their friends who had such experiences when they were traveling there the month before.
xenoparasite, xenoparasitism
1. An ectoparasite that becomes pathogenic when the resistance of its host weakens.
2. A strange organism not usually parasitic on the host but that becomes so because of a weakened condition of the host.

Related "foreign, strange" word families: allotrio-; barbar-.