Interfere

//ˌɪn.tɚˈfɪɚ// verb

verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To get involved or involve oneself, causing disturbance. intransitive

    "I always try not to interfere with other people’s personal affairs."

  2. 2
    come between so as to be hindrance or obstacle wordnet
  3. 3
    (of waves) To be correlated with each other when overlapped or superposed. intransitive

    "Correlated waves interfere to produce interesting patterns, while uncorrelated waves overlap without interfering."

  4. 4
    get involved, so as to alter or hinder an action, or through force or threat of force wordnet
  5. 5
    To strike one foot against the opposite foot or ankle in using the legs.
Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    To sexually molest, especially of a child. intransitive

    "The investigation found the girls had been interfered with."

Synonyms

All synonyms
butt ininterveneantagonizearrestbafflebalk

Example

More examples

"Bob told Jane not to interfere in his personal affairs."

Etymology

From Old French entreferir, from entre- + ferir (“to hit, to strike”), itself from the Latin verb ferio.

Related phrases

small interfering RNAbusy bodys ingérer

More for "interfere"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.