Meaning

(military, also figuratively) An advance into enemy territory, an attempted invasion; an encroachment, an incursion..

Definitions by Sense

1. (military, also figuratively) An advance into enemy territory, an attempted invasion; an encroachment, an incursion.
2. (figuratively, usually in the plural) Often followed by in, into, or on: initial progress made toward accomplishing a goal or solving a problem.
3. (intransitive, archaic) To make advances or incursions.
4. (transitive, obsolete) To make an inroad into (something).

Example Sentences

[…] That ſince that time he [Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus] was become the ſubject of King Henry [VIII] of England, his Majeſty's [James V of Scotland's] greateſt enemy; and was now the cauſe of all the Inroads made by the English into Scotland: […]

[A] child knowing the heate of fire, will as readely iudge of the perrill, as the wiſeſt Senatour, of the inroad of a borderer, or the politick captaine, of the vnequall encoũter with his enimy, […]

Whence is it that ſo many corrupt Opinions have made ſuch an Inroad on Proteſtant Religion, and the Profeſſion of it? Is it not from hence, that many have loſt an Experience of the power and efficacy of the Truth, and ſo have parted with it?

[T]he Britains, left to ſhift for themſelves, and daily haraſſed by cruel Inroads from the Picts, were forced to call in the Saxons for their Defence; […]

The brave and active Conſtantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the Alemanni; and his victories of Langres and Vindoniſſa appear to have been actions of conſiderable danger and merit.

While from their lovely climate, the poets native to their sweet south, the old ruins hallowed with the memories of other days, the lovely paintings, the still diviner statues, which had been their constant companions—the character had imperceptibly caught a tone of romance, calculated long to resist the inroads of worldliness and deceit.

[A] certain English colonel passed though the former's country with a body of men-at-arms, on the very day when the O'Mahonys had made an inroad upon our territories, and carried off a frightful plunder of our flocks and herds.

And everywhere the people, or the populace, take their own government upon themselves; and open 'kinglessness,' what we call anarchy, […] is everywhere the order of the day. Such was the history, from Baltic to Mediterranean, in Italy, France, Prussia, Austria, from end to end of Europe, in those March days of 1848. Since the destruction of the old Roman Empire by inroad of the Northern Barbarians, I have known nothing similar.

Word Forms

• inroads
• inroading
• inroaded

Synonyms for inroad

Related Words

When Should You Use Inroad?

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

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