perfect stranger

perfect stranger

Someone with whom one has absolutely no previous association. My mom and dad didn't come to see our son until he was nearly three years old, so, to him, they were perfect strangers! She thought it was terribly funny to go up to perfect strangers and begin conversations with them as if they had been lifelong friends.
See also: perfect, stranger
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

perfect stranger

 and total stranger
Fig. a person who is completely unknown [to oneself]. I was stopped on the street by a perfect stranger who wanted to know my name. If a total stranger asked me such a personal question, I am sure I would not answer!
See also: perfect, stranger
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • come down hard on (someone or something)
  • come down hard on someone
  • dad fetch my buttons
  • Dad fetch my buttons!
  • fetch
  • be toast
  • be in for it
  • be waiting for the other shoe to drop
  • a girl thing
  • curse at
References in classic literature
He was speedily ejected from the boarding-house; deposited his portmanteau with a perfect stranger, who did not even catch his name; wandered he knew not where, and was at last hove-to, all standing, in a hospital at Sacramento.
"She is a perfect stranger to me," Julian answered, quietly.
"A perfect stranger! You wrote me word you were interested in her."
"She mentioned her having been stopped on the frontier, and her finding herself accidentally in the company of another Englishwoman, a perfect stranger to her.
This was not, however, the case of Jones; for as he was a perfect stranger to the truth, so he was with good reason offended at the treatment he received.
(or to heed) that he was a perfect stranger to her.
Here was the excuse that I had made for her (when she forgot herself before Superintendent Seegrave, on the previous day) being made for her over again, by a man who couldn't have had MY interest in making it--for he was a perfect stranger! A kind of cold shudder ran through me, which I couldn't account for at the time.
"I have but one word to say," said I; "for to all this dispute I am a perfect stranger. But the plain common-sense is to set the blame where it belongs, and that is on the man who fired the shot.
I had a strong hope, which never left me, that I should one day recover my liberty: and as to the ignominy of being carried about for a monster, I considered myself to be a perfect stranger in the country, and that such a misfortune could never be charged upon me as a reproach, if ever I should return to England, since the king of Great Britain himself, in my condition, must have undergone the same distress.
During all this shooting, Robin exchanged no word with his men, each treating the other as a perfect stranger. Nathless, such great shooting could not pass without revealing the archers.
A lady, a perfect stranger to me, came in late--after we had left the table, and had retired to the drawing-room.
The two men on the bench and the eight at the tables, although they seemed perfect strangers to each other, these ten men alone, we say, appeared to have agreed to remain impassible amidst the cries of fury and the chinking of money.
Margolotte and Unc Nunkie are perfect strangers to me, for the moment I came to life they came to marble."
Disclaimer by Renee Knight, PS12.99 AFTER finding an unfamiliar book called The Perfect Stranger in her home, Catherine is plunged into a nightmare.
Her family and friends will always cherish her jokes, stories, and the ease with which she could make an immediate friend of a perfect stranger.Joan is survived by her three daughters, Donna McNamara and her husband Dennis Crehan of Alexandria, VA, Lori Kinney and her husband Craig of Westborough, Traci McCarthy of Derry, N.H., her sister, Ruth Welsh, her brother Gerald O'Brien, both of Westborough, a brother in law, sisters in law, many nieces, nephews, and lots of great friends.