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Impinge vs Obtrude - What's the difference?

impinge | obtrude | Synonyms |

In intransitive terms the difference between impinge and obtrude

is that impinge is to have an effect upon; to limit while obtrude is to become apparent in an unwelcome way, to be forcibly imposed; to jut in, to intrude ({{term|on}} or {{term|into}}).

As verbs the difference between impinge and obtrude

is that impinge is to make a physical impact (on); to collide, to crash (upon) while obtrude is to proffer (something) by force; to impose (something) {{term|on}} someone or {{term|into}} some area.

impinge

English

Verb

(imping)
  • To make a physical impact (on); to collide, to crash (upon).
  • * , vol.1, New York Review Books, 2001, p.287:
  • The ordinary rocks upon which such men do impinge and precipitate themselves, are cards, dice, hawks, and hounds […].
  • (figuratively) To interfere with; to encroach (on, upon).
  • *
  • To have an effect upon; to limit.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1913, author=
  • , chapter=4, title= Lord Stranleigh Abroad , passage=“I have tried, as I hinted, to enlist the co-operation of other capitalists, but experience has taught me that any appeal is futile that does not impinge directly upon cupidity. …”}}

    Usage notes

    * The transitive use is less common, not included in many small dictionaries, and not favored by Garner's Modern American Usage (2009).

    Derived terms

    * impingement * impingent * impinger

    obtrude

    English

    Verb

    (obtrud)
  • To proffer (something) by force; to impose (something) (on) someone or (into) some area.
  • *1651 , (Thomas Hobbes), Leviathan :
  • *:By which we may see, that they who are not called to Counsell, can have no good Counsell in such cases to obtrude .
  • *1855 , (Elizabeth Gaskell), North and South :
  • *:It was unusual with Margaret to obtrude her own subject of conversation on others; but, in this case, she was so anxious to prevent Mr. Thornton from feeling annoyance at the words he had accidentally overheard, that it was not until she had done speaking that she coloured all over with consciousness [...].
  • *2007 , Andrew Martin, The Guardian , 16 Jul 2007:
  • *:The prospect of people writing PhD theses that obtrude hard facts into the question of whether it's a) grim or b) nice up north is naturally worrying to all those of us who like to shout about those matters in the saloon bars of England.
  • To become apparent in an unwelcome way, to be forcibly imposed; to jut in, to intrude ((on) or (into)).
  • *1853 , , :
  • *:Sometimes I dreamed strangely of disturbed earth, and of hair, still golden and living, obtruded through the coffin-chinks.
  • *1991 , (Roy Jenkins), A Life at the Centre :
  • *:It was not only the police but the palace which obtruded on a home secretary's life.
  • *2010 , Colin Greenland, The Guardian , 7 Aug 2010:
  • *:In such a very chronological book, though, small anachronisms do obtrude .
  • (reflexive) To impose (oneself) on others; to cut in.
  • *1934 , (Winston Churchill), Marlborough: His Life and Times , vol II:
  • *:She obtruded herself upon the Queen; she protested her party views; she asked for petty favours, and attributed the refusals to the influence of Abigail.
  • *2004 , Marc Abrahams, The Guardian , 13 Jan 2004:
  • *:This scarcity of knowledge also obtruded itself in 1998, when three scientists in Wales published a report called "What Sort of Men Take Garlic Preparations?"
  • *2010 , (Christopher Hitchens), Hitch-22 , Atlantic 2011, p. 121:
  • *:As 1968 began to ebb into 1969, however, and as “anticlimax” began to become a real word in my lexicon, another term began to obtrude itself.
  • Anagrams

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