INROAD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does inroad mean? 

• INROAD (noun)
  The noun INROAD has 2 senses:

1. an encroachment or intrusion

2. an invasion or hostile attack

  Familiarity information: INROAD used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INROAD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An encroachment or intrusion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

they made inroads in the United States market

Hypernyms ("inroad" is a kind of...):

encroachment; intrusion; trespass; usurpation; violation (entry to another's property without right or permission)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An invasion or hostile attack

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("inroad" is a kind of...):

invasion (the act of invading; the act of an army that invades for conquest or plunder)

 Context examples 

They were animals, then, and not natives, who had made the inroad, for surely the latter would have left nothing behind.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite his reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

My journey had been my own suggestion, and Elizabeth therefore acquiesced, but she was filled with disquiet at the idea of my suffering, away from her, the inroads of misery and grief.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

My master further assured me, which I also observed myself, that in the fields where the shining stones abound, the fiercest and most frequent battles are fought, occasioned by perpetual inroads of the neighbouring Yahoos.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He might not be aware of the inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper's room, or a bad butler's pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The little rusticities and awkwardnesses which had at first made grievous inroads on the tranquillity of all, and not least of herself, necessarily wore away, and she was no longer materially afraid to appear before her uncle, nor did her aunt Norris's voice make her start very much.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

My mother and sisters were always about me, and I was always trying to escape them; for they worried me to distraction with their solicitude for my health and with their periodic inroads on my den, when my orderly confusion, upon which I prided myself, was turned into worse confusion and less order, though it looked neat enough to the eye.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)