Xenophile
noun /ˈzɛnəfaɪl/ — Someone drawn to foreign people, cultures, and places.
Definition
A person who is attracted to foreign cultures, people, languages, and customs; one who finds the unfamiliar fascinating rather than threatening.
Beyond the definition
Every committed traveller knows the xenophile feeling — the pull toward the unfamiliar, the conviction that the stranger's way of doing things contains something worth understanding. A xenophile doesn't romanticise the foreign naively; they're genuinely curious. It's the opposite of parochialism.
Origin & history
From Greek xenos 'stranger, foreigner' + philos 'loving'. Counterpart to xenophobe (someone who fears or hates foreigners). First used in English in the mid-20th century.
Example sentences
Illustrative sentences for learning, not verified community posts or sourced quotations.
She was a confirmed xenophile — she'd learnt fragments of twelve languages and planned to continue.
His xenophile instincts meant he always preferred the neighbourhood restaurant to the tourist recommendation.
Being a xenophile in a globalised world is not exotic — it's simply paying attention.
How to use it
This entry uses a noun. Follow the examples for articles and singular or plural forms; not every noun takes “a” or “an.”
Choose “Xenophile” when the meaning fits your context: A person who is attracted to foreign cultures, people, languages, and customs; one who finds the unfamiliar fascinating rather than threatening.
Synonyms
cosmopolitan, internationalist, culturally curious
Antonyms
Related words
Word in the Wild
Illustrative story: an imagined scene, not a documented event or interview.
She had been collecting friends from everywhere she'd ever been: a bookseller in Lisbon, a taxi driver in Nairobi she still texted, a family in Kyoto who had once given her shelter from a typhoon.
People who knew her well said she was not curious about foreign places. She was curious about people, full stop — and foreign places simply delivered them in their most interesting form: unguarded, rooted, themselves.
"Every person is a world," she told her daughter, who had just come home from her first year abroad. "Your job is to want to enter them."
Questions about this word
What does "Xenophile" mean?
Xenophile is noun meaning: Someone drawn to foreign people, cultures, and places.. A person who is attracted to foreign cultures, people, languages, and customs; one who finds the unfamiliar fascinating rather than threatening.
Where does the word "Xenophile" come from?
From Greek xenos 'stranger, foreigner' + philos 'loving'. Counterpart to xenophobe (someone who fears or hates foreigners). First used in English in the mid-20th century.