Dictionary

obtrude en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /əbˈtɹuːd/ (UK)
• /ɒbˈtɹuːd/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Latin obtrūdō (“thrust off or against”), from ob- (“ob-”) + trūdō (“thrust”).

Meanings

1. (transitive) To proffer (something) by force; to impose (something) on someone or into some area.
   • The prospect of people writing PhD theses that obtrude hard facts into the question of whether it's a) grim or b) nice up north is naturally worrying to all those of us who like to shout about those matters in the saloon bars of England. 2007 July 16, Andrew Martin, The Guardian:
   • It was unusual with Margaret to obtrude her own subject of conversation on others; but, in this case, she was so anxious to prevent Mr. Thornton from feeling annoyance at the words he had accidentally overheard, that it was not until she had done speaking that she coloured all over with consciousness […] 1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South:
   • By which we may see, that they who are not called to Counsell, can have no good Counsell in such cases to obtrude. 1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan:
2. (intransitive) To become apparent in an unwelcome way, to be forcibly imposed; to jut in, to intrude (on or into).
   • Occasionally the thought obtruded itself that possibly at some later day Tarzan would regret his magnanimity, and claim his rights. 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 99:
   • In such a very chronological book, though, small anachronisms do obtrude. 2010 August 7, Colin Greenland, The Guardian:
   • It was not only the police but the palace which obtruded on a home secretary's life. 1991, Roy Jenkins, A Life at the Centre:
   • Sometimes I dreamed strangely of disturbed earth, and of hair, still golden and living, obtruded through the coffin-chinks. 1853, Charlotte Brontë, Villette:
   • How you can bear such recollections, is astonishing to me!—They will sometimes obtrude—but how you can court them! 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume III, chapter 18:
3. (reflexive) To impose (oneself) on others; to cut in.
   • She obtruded herself upon the Queen; she protested her party views; she asked for petty favours, and attributed the refusals to the influence of Abigail. 1934, Winston Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, volume II:
   • This scarcity of knowledge also obtruded itself in 1998, when three scientists in Wales published a report called "What Sort of Men Take Garlic Preparations?" 2004 January 13, Marc Abrahams, The Guardian:
   • As 1968 began to ebb into 1969, however, and as “anticlimax” began to become a real word in my lexicon, another term began to obtrude itself. 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 121:

Forms

Deriveds

obtruder

Translations (21)

ru навязывать (transitive) · fi tunkeutua (intransitive) · bg нахлувам (transitive) · fi tunkea (transitive) · ru навязываться (reflexive) · fi pakottaa (transitive) · hi निकालना (transitive) · fi tuputtaa (transitive) · fi tungetella (intransitive) · uk нав'язувати (transitive) · nl opdringen (transitive) · uk нав'язуватися (reflexive) · fi tungetella (reflexive) · bg меся се (intransitive) · hi निकलवाना (reflexive) · bg натрапвам се (intransitive) · fi tyrkyttää (transitive) · fr transparaître (intransitive) · fi tyrkyttäytyä (reflexive) · fr empiéter (intransitive) · hi निकलाना (intransitive)