stranger to

a stranger to (someone or something)

1. Literally, someone who has never met someone or been to some place. I was a complete stranger to this country four years ago, but now I feel like I've lived here forever. I have heard her name mentioned by others, but she is a stranger to me.
2. By extension, someone who experience or knowledge of something. Often used in negative constructions. They brought in lawyer who was no stranger to such complex cases. He was a complete stranger to illicit drugs until he was well into his 30s.
See also: stranger
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

stranger to (something or some place)

someone who is new to an area or place. Although John was a stranger to big cities, he enjoyed visiting New York. You are a stranger to our town, and I hope you feel welcome.
See also: stranger
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • a stranger to (someone or something)
  • accompany (one) on a/(one's) journey
  • accompany on a journey
  • be out of (one's) league
  • be out of somebody's league
  • be in bad with (someone)
  • (one) puts (one's) pants on one leg at a time
  • bargain
  • bargain for (someone or something) with (someone)
  • brief (someone) about (someone or something)
References in classic literature
"We have had enough foolishness," said the stranger to Malbihn.
Cocles appeared, and the young man bade him conduct the stranger to M.
For instance, my first day at work, everyone was a stranger to me, but because of my speaking skills, I was not nervous or tongue tied while speaking to them.
It is appropriate (and often a relief) for a stranger to offer to lift your heavy briefcase into the overhead compartment on a crowded airplane.
Do not put yourself in a position where you are giving your baby to a stranger to suck on their breast.
No stranger to interviewing the most famous names in the music biz, Blathnaid lands her biggest scoop to date when she tracks down Ed Sheeran's long lost brother, Ned Sheeran, and investigates the tall tales he has to divulge
Discussing the new, unpredictable meanings generated by metaphoric activity, which eventually become domesticated as "dead metaphor" and thus need to be re-estranged, he explains that the "health of a culture in this way depends upon its being continually made a stranger to itself, and the source of that estrangement can come from anywhere" (51).
Hospitality to the stranger, as understood in the Bible, allows--or even expects--the stranger to remain different.
"What compels a complete stranger to risk their life to help someone?
(17) The disciples demonstrate hospitality by inviting the stranger to stay with them.
And in a burst of unfortunate timing, they choose this night to flee and this stranger to berate for his ignorance of "the facts." "Don't you know about Jesus?" they say so smugly, not realizing they don't know Jesus from Jack, as this encounter ironically bears out.
For this reason, John Wesley, who was no stranger to the vicissitudes of eighteenth-century daily urban life, instructed his followers never to invoke angels.
The playwright Craig Lucas is no stranger to philosophical exploration.
MANY READERS HAVE TAKEN THE ELEATIC STRANGER to represent a later stage of Plato's philosophical development because the arguments or doctrines the Stranger presents in the Sophist appear to be better than those Socrates articulates in earlier dialogues.(1) In particular, in the Sophist Plato shows the Stranger answering two questions Socrates proved unable to resolve in two of his conversations the day before.
It would appear from this passage that the failure of the Eleatic Stranger to engage his young interlocutors in genuine dialogue is an intentional feature of Plato's art in the Sophist and the Statesman.