Meaning

(transitive, obsolete) to seize, appropriate.

Definitions by Sense

1. (transitive, obsolete) to seize, appropriate
2. (intransitive) To intrude unrightfully on someone else’s rights or territory.
3. (intransitive) To advance gradually beyond due limits.
4. (rare) Encroachment.

Example Sentences

Now stands the Brere like a lord alone, / Puffed up with pryde and vaine pleasaunce. / But all this glee had no continuaunce: / For eftsones winter gan to approche; / The blustering Boreas did encroche, / And beate upon the solitarie Brere; / For nowe no succoure was seene him nere.

I won’t encroach on your time any longer.

He never allows work to encroach upon his family life.

Gradually the negative feelings encroached into her work.

[D]rowſie drouping Age, / incroaching on apace, / With penſiue Plough will raze your hue / and Beauties beames deface.

Because change itself would absolutely stay-stable, and again, conversely, stability itself would change, if each of them encroached on the other.

All that we see, all colours of all shade, By encroach of darkness made?

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.

Word Forms

• encroaches
• encroaching
• encroached
• incroach

Synonyms for encroach

Related Words

When Should You Use Encroach?

Use encroach when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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