encroach

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Contents

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old French encrochier (“seize”), from en- + croc (“hook”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • (UK) IPA: /ɛnˈkɹəʊtʃ/, /ɪnˈkɹəʊtʃ/
  • Rhymes: -əʊtʃ

Verb[edit]

encroach (third-person singular simple present encroaches, present participle encroaching, simple past and past participle encroached)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) to seize, appropriate
  2. (intransitive) to intrude unrightfully on someone else's rights or territory
    • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 252d.
      Because change itself would absolutely stay-stable, and again, conversely, stability itself would change, if each of them encroached on the other.
  3. (intransitive) to advance gradually beyond due limits

Translations[edit]

to intrude unrightfully on someone else's rights or territory
to advance gradually beyond due limits

Derived terms[edit]

Noun[edit]

encroach (plural encroaches)

  1. (rare) Encroachment.
    • 1805, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘What is Life?’:
      All that we see, all colours of all shade, / By encroach of darkness made?
    • 2002, Caroline Winterer, The Culture of Classicism, JHU Press 2002, p. 116:
      Shorey was among the most vociferous opponents of the encroach of scientism and utilitarianism in education and society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Translations[edit]

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