obtrusive
/əbˈtɹusɪv/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.30 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of a person: overly assertive, bold, or domineering; pushy; also, ostentatious.
adj
Of a thing: noticeable or prominent, especially in a displeasing way.
Example Sentences
- "The office manager is an unpleasantly obtrusive individual."
- "Her vertue and the conſcience of her worth, / That would be woo'd, and not unfought be won, / Not obvious, not obtruſive, but retir'd, / The more deſirable, […]"
- "He has an obtrusive forehead."
- "Thus it was that, year by year, Boss McGinty's diamond pins became more obtrusive, his gold chains more weighty across a more gorgeous vest, and his saloon stretched farther and farther, until it threatened to absorb one whole side of the Market Square."
- "But there was a third principal in this primitive drama, the wife of Essenden, a woman of great energy, great possessiveness and obtrusive helpfulness."
- "The facade of the building was ornamented with obtrusive sculpted designs."
Etymology
PIE word *h₁epi From Latin obtrūsus + English -ive (suffix meaning ‘of the nature of’, forming adjectives). Obtrūsus is the perfect passive participle of obtrūdō, a variant of obstrūdō (“to push, shove, or thrust against or into”), from ob- (prefix meaning ‘against; towards’) + trūdō (“to push, shove, or thrust”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *trewd- (“to push; to thrust”)).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *trewd-, obtrūsus
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əbˈtɹusɪv/
- British English: /əbˈtɹuːsɪv/
Usage
Inflected Forms
more obtrusive (comparative)
most obtrusive (superlative)