alias

alias — preposition

1. placed between someone's real name and the other name they are widely known by,

1.prepositionB2
Definition

placed between someone's real name and the other name they are widely known by, especially in news reports, biographies, or police records.

Example

The court named the suspect as Mark Reynolds, alias 'the Fox'.

[real name] alias [nickname] in formal/legal context

Samuel Clemens, alias Mark Twain, wrote his most famous novels in Hartford.

linking real name to pen name

Common collocations
  • [real name] alias [other name]
  • alias 'the [nickname]'
Synonyms

Grammar Patterns

[real name] alias [other name]

Usage Note

Sits between two noun phrases, never at the start of a clause. Distinguish from the noun sense by position: here it joins two names; the noun sense takes a determiner ('an alias', 'his alias').

Common Mistakes

Alias Mark Twain wrote many novels.
Samuel Clemens, alias Mark Twain, wrote many novels.
the preposition needs the real name in front of it.

alias — noun

alias — adverb

Word family

  • aliasing
    nounC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All five words name an alternative to someone's real name, but they differ in tone and purpose. 'Alias' carries a hint of secrecy — police reports, spy stories, and online anonymity. 'Pseudonym' is the most formal and neutral, often used for writers and artists who simply prefer a different professional name. 'Pen name' is narrower still: only for authors. 'Handle' is informal and chiefly for online or radio use, like a gamer's screen name. 'Nickname' is the friendliest of the group — a name given by friends or family, with no concealment intended. Compare: a fugitive uses an alias to hide; George Eliot was the pseudonym (and pen name) of Mary Ann Evans; a streamer's handle is 'NightOwl42'; only her grandmother calls her by the nickname 'Bunny'.

alias ↗pseudonympen namehandle ↗nickname ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • alias name
  • criminal alias
  • email alias
  • command alias

Phrases

  • use an alias
  • go by an alias
  • create an alias
  • known by the alias

Prepositions

  • under an alias
  • by an alias

Etymology

LatinEnglish

Borrowed directly from Latin in the late 1500s. The Latin adverb 'alias' meant 'at another time' or 'otherwise', from 'alius' meaning 'other'. English first used it in legal writing to introduce a person's other name (the 'otherwise called' sense) — the noun meaning 'a false name' grew out of this courtroom usage by the late 1600s. The computing sense, where a short label points to something longer, was coined by software engineers in the 1980s, borrowing the everyday meaning of one name standing in for another.