MEANING
1. Gradual intrusion on someone else’s territory, rights, authority, time, or established activity.
2. In some sports, movement too close to play or into a restricted position before the rules allow it.
Use it for
describing a gradual expansion into another institution’s authority; analyzing threats to rights through accumulating small changes; distinguishing boundary-crossing intrusion from neutral growthIdentifies gradual intrusion across a boundary, not just expansion within an accepted domain. Academic functions: Change / Pattern / Trend.
Words that belong together
- encroachment on rights
- urban encroachment
- encroachment upon autonomy
On the page
The essay traces executive encroachment on powers previously exercised by the legislature.
Urban encroachment altered the relationship between the settlement and surrounding farmland.
The referee identified encroachment before the restart.
The example uses encroachment as a sports-rule term, not a metaphor for political influence.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- encroachment
Usage notes
Countable or uncountable: encroachment, encroachments. Encroachment on/upon + territory, rights or authority. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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