Intruder

How to spell intruder

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce intruder

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does intruder mean?

1. nounA person who enters a place or situation without permission or welcome.

Intruder in a sentence

• The alarm went off the moment the intruder forced the back door.

• The dog barked at every intruder who crossed into the garden.

Where does intruder come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb intrudere, meaning 'to thrust in' or 'to push oneself in', built from the prefix in- 'into' and trudere 'to thrust or push'. The same trudere root pushes its way into several English relatives, including 'protrude' (to push forward), 'extrude' (to push out), and 'abstruse' (literally 'pushed away', hence hidden or hard to understand). English took up 'intrude' in the fifteenth century, and the agent noun 'intruder' followed naturally by adding the suffix -er to name the person doing the thrusting in. The original idea of physically forcing one's way into a space narrowed over time to the modern sense of someone who enters without permission. A handy spelling cue is that the middle holds the Latin trud root intact, so it is spelled trud, not trood, even though it sounds like 'trood'.

How the word is built

• in- (in, into)
• trud (from Latin trudere: to thrust, push)
• -er (agent noun: one who does)