intrusive
Americanadjective
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tending or apt to intrude; coming without invitation or welcome.
intrusive memories of a lost love.
- Synonyms:
- disturbing, irritating, troublesome, worrisome, irksome, bothersome, annoying
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characterized by or involving intrusion.
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intruding; thrusting in.
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Geology.
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(of a rock) having been forced between preexisting rocks or rock layers while in a molten or plastic condition.
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noting or pertaining to plutonic rocks.
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Phonetics. excrescent.
adjective
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characterized by intrusion or tending to intrude
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(of igneous rocks) formed by intrusion Compare extrusive
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phonetics relating to or denoting a speech sound that is introduced into a word or piece of connected speech for a phonetic rather than a historical or grammatical reason, such as the (r) often pronounced between idea and of in the idea of it
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of intrusive
late Middle English word dating back to 1375–1425; see origin at intrusion, -ive
Explanation
Something intrusive is getting in your face or invading your space. Nosey questions, a poke in the ribs, and a hovering mother are all intrusive. Things that are intrusive are a real pain in the neck: they intrude on you. If someone asks you a million questions, especially personal questions, that's intrusive behavior. When photographers hound celebrities, they're being intrusive. If a rock is sticking out and getting in people's way, then it's intrusive. All meanings of intrusive involve something being where it doesn't belong.
Vocabulary lists containing intrusive
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They experience heightened anxiety, panic attacks, intrusive memories, and difficulty concentrating in general.
From BBC • Jun. 27, 2026
Civil liberties campaigning group Big Brother Watch slammed the live facial recognition expansion as an "alarming escalation of an intrusive technology".
From Barron's • Jun. 24, 2026
Mr. Kendall’s biography avoids being an intrusive, interrogating look at the cartoonist and his longstanding narrative.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 19, 2026
Obsessive, intrusive thoughts can paralyse sufferers with anxiety, fear, disgust or shame - and many will not realise the images they are experiencing in their head are due to OCD.
From BBC • Apr. 29, 2026
I felt intrusive, as reporters often do, and I began to think that a tape machine between two people who were supposedly friends was a foreign object, an artificial ear.
From "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
