Obtrusive

//əbˈtɹuːsɪv// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of a person: overly assertive, bold, or domineering; pushy; also, ostentatious. figuratively

    "The office manager is an unpleasantly obtrusive individual."

  2. 2
    Of a thing: noticeable or prominent, especially in a displeasing way. figuratively

    "He has an obtrusive forehead."

  3. 3
    Protruding or sticking out, especially in a way that obstructs. obsolete

    "The facade of the building was ornamented with obtrusive sculpted designs."

Adjective
  1. 1
    undesirably noticeable wordnet
  2. 2
    sticking out; protruding wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
noticeableaggressively self-confidentarrantarrogantaudaciousauthoritarian

Example

More examples

"She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented "place" that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village—appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing."

Etymology

PIE word *h₁epi From Latin obtrūsus + English -ive (suffix meaning ‘of the nature of’, forming adjectives). Obtrūsus is the perfect passive participle of obtrūdō, a variant of obstrūdō (“to push, shove, or thrust against or into”), from ob- (prefix meaning ‘against; towards’) + trūdō (“to push, shove, or thrust”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *trewd- (“to push; to thrust”)).

More for "obtrusive"

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.