to advance beyond proper, established, or usual limits; make gradual inroads: A dictatorship of the majority is encroaching on the rights of the individual.
to trespass upon the property, domain, or rights of another, especially stealthily or by gradual advances.
stay in your laneRead more in this article about some frequently asked questions and fun facts related to our definitions.
How To Use The Em DashEm Dash: What is it and how do you use it? An em dash is a punctuation mark that can be used in many ways. What about the en dash vs em dash?
In the east, the Chinese army continues periodically to encroach on Indian territory.
Any attempt to encroach on it, even by an iota, will ultimately lead to our enslavement by a federal tyranny.
How does this symbolize constraints on girls and women, and encroach on our right to be simply as we are, at any given moment?
He got really mad when they started to encroach on his personal life.
You must do nothing to encroach upon another's rights, or to interrupt and disturb your companions in their pursuits.
He was suddenly ashamed, humbled, feeling in her love a quality upon which no shameful circumstance could encroach.
Evolution—once a mere germ in the mind—was beginning to press, to encroach, to intermeddle with the mind's other furniture.
The clergy attempted to encroach upon the privileges of both.
Already the sun hung in the zenith, and it was time to begin if the sport were not to encroach upon the dinner hour.
early 14c., "acquire, get," from Old French encrochier "seize, fasten on, hang on (to), cling (to); hang up, suspend," literally "to catch with a hook," from en- "in" (see en- (1)) + croc "hook," from Old Norse krokr "hook" (see crook). Meaning "seize wrongfully" is from c.1400. Sense of "trespass" is first recorded 1530s. Related: Encroached; encroaches; encroaching.