OBTRUSIVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does obtrusive mean? 

• OBTRUSIVE (adjective)
  The adjective OBTRUSIVE has 2 senses:

1. sticking out; protruding

2. undesirably noticeable

  Familiarity information: OBTRUSIVE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OBTRUSIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sticking out; protruding

Similar:

protrusive (thrusting outward)

Derivation:

obtrude (push to thrust outward)

obtrusiveness (an unwelcome conspicuousness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Undesirably noticeable

Context example:

equally obtrusive was the graffiti

Similar:

noticeable (capable or worthy of being noticed)

Derivation:

obtrusiveness (an unwelcome conspicuousness)

 Context examples 

The other had been silent all this time, but I had observed that his more controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive emotion of the clergyman.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more intolerable—at least to me—than any demeanour he could have assumed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

With all the security which love of another and disesteem of him could give to the peace of mind he was attacking, his continued attentions—continued, but not obtrusive, and adapting themselves more and more to the gentleness and delicacy of her character—obliged her very soon to dislike him less than formerly.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I was not so vexed at losing Agnes as I might have been, since it gave me an opportunity of making myself known to Traddles on the stairs, who greeted me with great fervour; while Uriah writhed with such obtrusive satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could gladly have pitched him over the banisters.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Also of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing Traddles's hair start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those obtrusive little figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

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.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)