overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

obtrusive.

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

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/əbˈtɹuːsɪv/Received-Pronunciation/ɒb-/Received-Pronunciation/əbˈtɹusɪv/General-American/ɑb-/General-American
  1. Of a person: overly assertive, bold, or domineering; pushy; also, ostentatious.

    figuratively
    The office manager is an unpleasantly obtrusive individual.
  2. Of a thing: noticeable or prominent, especially in a displeasing way.

    figuratively
    He has an obtrusive forehead.
  3. Protruding or sticking out, especially in a way that obstructs.

    obsolete
    The facade of the building was ornamented with obtrusive sculpted designs.
Where this word comes from

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”)).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

obtrusive has 9 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

obtrusive studioobtrusive workshello, obtrusive

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.