Irruption

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The action of irrupting or breaking into; a violent entry or invasion; an inbreaking; an intrusion. countable, uncountable

    "The Trojan irruption into the Greek camp is related in Book XV of the Iliad."

  2. 2
    a sudden violent entrance; a bursting in wordnet
  3. 3
    An abrupt increase of an animal population. countable, uncountable

    "Extreme rainfall events predict irruptions of rat plagues in central Australia."

  4. 4
    a sudden violent spontaneous occurrence (usually of some undesirable condition) wordnet
  5. 5
    An abrupt increase in the size of a movement or organization. broadly, countable, uncountable

    "How can we explain this irruption of young people self-identifying as socialists?"

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  1. 6
    a sudden sharp increase in the relative numbers of a population wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
outbreakaggressionair attackair raidair strikeblaze

Example

More examples

"The Trojan irruption into the Greek camp is related in Book XV of the Iliad."

Etymology

From Middle French irruption, from Latin irruptiō(n).

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