Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Encroach
En-croach′
,Verb.
I.
[
imp. & p. p.
Encroached
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Encroaching
.] [OF.
encrochier
to perch, prop., to hook, fasten a hook (perh. confused with acrochier
, F. accrocher
, to hook, get hold of, E. accroach
); pref. en-
(L. in
) + F. croc
hook. See Crook
, and cf. Accroach
.] To enter by gradual steps or by stealth into the possessions or rights of another; to trespass; to intrude; to trench; – commonly with
on
or upon
; as, to
encroach
on a neighbor; to encroach
on the highway.No sense, faculty, or member must
encroach
upon or interfere with the duty and office of another. South.
Superstition, . . . a creeping and
encroaching
evil. Hooker.
Syn. – To intrude; trench; infringe; invade; trespass.
En-croach′
,Noun.
Encroachment.
[Obs.]
South.
Webster 1828 Edition
Encroach
ENCROACH
,Verb.
I.
1.
To enter on the rights and possession of another; to intrude; to take possession of what belongs to another, by gradual advances into his limits or jurisdiction, and usurping a part of his rights or prerogatives; with on. The farmer who runs a fence on his neighbor's land, and incloses a piece with his own, encroaches on his neighbor's property. Men often encroach, in this manner, on the highway. The sea is said to encroach on the land, when it wears it away gradually; and the land encroaches on the sea, when it is extended into it by alluvion. It is important to prevent one branch of government from encroaching on the jurisdiction of another.2.
To creep on gradually without right.Superstition--a creeping and encroaching evil.
3.
To pass the proper bounds, and enter on another's rights.Exclude th' encroaching cattle from thy ground.
Definition 2024
encroach
encroach
English
Verb
encroach (third-person singular simple present encroaches, present participle encroaching, simple past and past participle encroached)
- (transitive, obsolete) to seize, appropriate
- (intransitive) to intrude unrightfully on someone else's rights or territory
- 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: Conteyning Tvvelue Æglogues Proportionable to the Twelue Monethes. Entitled to the Noble and Vertuous Gentleman most Worthy of all Titles both of Learning and Cheualrie M. Philip Sidney, London: Printed by Hugh Singleton, dwelling in Creede Lane neere vnto Ludgate at the signe of the gylden Tunne, and are there to be solde, OCLC 606515406; republished in Francis J[ames] Child, editor, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser: The Text Carefully Revised, and Illustrated with Notes, Original and Selected by Francis J. Child: Five Volumes in Three, volume III, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company; The Riverside Press, Cambridge, published 1855, OCLC 793557671, page 406, lines 222–228:
- 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.
- 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.
- 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: Conteyning Tvvelue Æglogues Proportionable to the Twelue Monethes. Entitled to the Noble and Vertuous Gentleman most Worthy of all Titles both of Learning and Cheualrie M. Philip Sidney, London: Printed by Hugh Singleton, dwelling in Creede Lane neere vnto Ludgate at the signe of the gylden Tunne, and are there to be solde, OCLC 606515406; republished in Francis J[ames] Child, editor, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser: The Text Carefully Revised, and Illustrated with Notes, Original and Selected by Francis J. Child: Five Volumes in Three, volume III, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company; The Riverside Press, Cambridge, published 1855, OCLC 793557671, page 406, lines 222–228:
- (intransitive) to advance gradually beyond due limits
Translations
to intrude unrightfully on someone else's rights or territory
|
to advance gradually beyond due limits
Derived terms
Noun
encroach (plural encroaches)
- (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.
- 1805, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘What is Life?’:
Translations
encroachment — see encroachment