encroach

Word family

en·croach /ɪnˈkrəʊtʃ $ -ˈkroʊtʃ/ verb [intransitiveI always + adverbadv/prepositionprep]

1 TAKE something FROM somebodyto gradually take more of someone’s time, possessions, rights etc than you should 逐步侵占[侵犯]；蚕食

encroach on/upon

Bureaucratic power has encroached upon the freedom of the individual.

官僚权力已经侵犯了个人的自由。

2 COVERto gradually cover more and more land 侵占(土地)

encroach into

The fighting encroached further east.

战斗进一步向东推进。

—encroachment noun [countableC, uncountableU]

foreign encroachment

外来入侵

Examples from the Corpus

encroach• But even there, modernity has encroached.• Poachers, illegal loggers and encroaching farmers are active everywhere across the sprawling archipelago.• Fourthly, a successful terminal at Stratford would inevitably and inexorably encroach on the Lea Valley regional park and reduce leisure facilities.• One was the simple protection of individual rights against an encroaching state, the basic defence of rights in the liberal tradition.• His knapsack was so big that it proved a useful weapon in knocking encroaching sunbathers off his collection of sun loungers.• The law stipulates that a monument can not interfere or encroach upon an existing memorial.• It is possible that the deletion is encroaching upon an important part of the protein and altering the conformation of the complex.• This is the chalk of the plains, although it encroaches upon the slopes, most notably in the northern Montagne.

encroach on/upon• It fell into the business category and was therefore Bernard's province, not to be encroached upon.• This too has partly been encroached upon.• Still, development had sprung up around the edges, like weeds encroaching on a garden.• The law stipulates that a monument can not interfere or encroach upon an existing memorial.• Gordimer doesn't allow her political activities to encroach on her writing.• It always seems presumptuous to encroach on that self-sufficiency.• He had, until then, been very unwilling to encroach on the authority of his formidable Secretary of State.• The growth of bureaucratic power since 1900, Handlin wrote, had begun ominously to encroach upon the freedom of the individual.• It was staffed by women and men who didn't like outsiders encroaching on their space.

From Longman Business Dictionary

encroachen·croach /ɪnˈkrəʊtʃ-ˈkroʊtʃ/ verb

→ encroach on/upon something

Origin encroach

(1300-1400) Old French encrochier “to seize”, from croche “hook”

en·croach verb

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus