toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

encroach
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • Suddenly, as he looked a little wildly around the room, he became aware of a quietly encroaching eventuality.†   (source)
  • Long shadows encroached everywhere, and the usually soaring vaulted ceilings appeared as a low, black void.†   (source)
  • The sea of white orchids could still be glimpsed from this side of the mountain, glowing like an encroaching desert in the sun.†   (source)
  • Old dreams encroached upon the waking world.†   (source)
  • There are a host of conditions encroaching on me.†   (source)
  • And earning money from my eggs gave me this secret happy feeling, which I was reluctant to have the kindness of my heart encroach upon.†   (source)
  • He sees Frederick staring into his book of birds; he sees the furor of the mines at Zollverein, the shunting cars, the banging locks, the trundling conveyors, smokestacks silting the sky day and night; he sees Jutta slashing back and forth with a lit torch as darkness encroaches from all sides.†   (source)
  • The second wave, as it tore toward the beach with me, spewed me a little ahead of it, encroaching rapidly; suddenly it was immeasurably bigger than I was, it rushed me from the control of gravity and took control of me itself; the wave threw me down in a primitive plunge without a bottom, then there was a bottom, grinding sand, and I skidded onto the shore.†   (source)
  • She was coolly responsive to Briony's suggestions, spoke her lines, which she seemed to have learned overnight, with sufficient expression, and was gently encouraging to her little brother, without encroaching at all on the director's authority.†   (source)
  • But over the summer his encroaching dementia had taken a cruel twist.†   (source)
  • The long rows of onions looked endless, their sharp green shoots already half hidden by encroaching weeds.†   (source)
  • As far as the troll was concerned, his territory was being encroached on.†   (source)
  • Her mind, freed of any linear order by encroaching sleep, floated past the first year at Stovington, past the steadily worsening times that had reached low ebb when her husband had broken Danny's arm, to that morning in the breakfast nook.†   (source)
  • In places, it was possible to see the modem world encroaching: a large refrigerator and dishwasher near the sink; a microwave propped kitty-corner near a half-empty bottle of red wine.†   (source)
  • It was true, the trees did encroach on our little clearing.†   (source)
  • The desert encroached.†   (source)
  • I ignored my truck and started east on foot, angling across Charlie's yard toward the ever-encroaching forest.†   (source)
  • When I get to England I'll put a stop to their bloody encroachments.†   (source)
  • …utilized, they will be subject to pilferage and "shrink. age" as unauthorized persons consume them, either as partof a conscious effort to pilfer or out of an honest misunderstanding, i. e., a belief that the BTDUs are being provided free of charge by the operating agency (in this case the United States Government), or as the result of necessity, as in the case of a beverage spill that is encroaching on sensitive electronic equipment and whose management will thus brook no delay.†   (source)
  • Franchisees call the practice "encroachment" and angrily oppose it.†   (source)
  • The Mexicans who came to live in the San Gabriel Valley worked the fields, the railroads or in the encroaching industry which soon dotted the valley.†   (source)
  • It warmed Meggie's heart just to see it, but all too often it disappeared behind the tall, ugly buildings covering the narrow strip of land that lay between the water and the encroaching hills.†   (source)
  • They had built a tall wall to screen off the slum and prevent it from encroaching on Kari Saipu's estate.†   (source)
  • The Morrigan raised her head to look at the encroaching darkness, her black eyes reflecting the tiny spots of stars.†   (source)
  • Indeed, although one could not see out far that day on account of the encroaching mist, and the daylight too was rapidly fading by this stage, obliging Miss Kenton to hold her needlework up to the last of it, I remember our often breaking off from our respective activities simply to gaze out at the views around us.†   (source)
  • I tried to picture him, working at his laptop in our sunny kitchen, but the image was spoilt by encroachments from his new life.†   (source)
  • Tall poplars had gone a buttery yellow while the shrubby sumac encroaching on the road was tinged a violent red.†   (source)
  • She was to have been the answer to his unstated, unacknowledged question—where was the life to counter the encroaching nonlife?†   (source)
  • He was afraid of encroaching on her right to decide for herself.†   (source)
  • What it wants to do is exclude the encroaching world of reality and go on sleeping without end in a soft, enigmatic darkness.†   (source)
  • My family and I have defended Surda against the Empire's encroachment every day of our lives for generations, while the Varden merely hid in Farthen Dur and leeched off Hrothgar's generosity.†   (source)
  • The first faint rays of a cold dawn encroached upon the horrid night.†   (source)
  • In the nineteenth century, Fort Beaufort was one of a number of British outposts during the so-called Frontier Wars, in which a steady encroachment of white settlers systematically dispossessed the various Xhosa tribes of their land.†   (source)
  • Atlanta encroaches, and seems to swallow the little town.†   (source)
  • She would be properly guided, and—and encroach less on your time.†   (source)
  • He glared at the poison flood encroaching from all sides.†   (source)
  • But in October 2003, making his last visit of the year to the Northern Areas before leaving to launch his new CAI initiative in Afghanistan, Mortenson felt perfectly content, despite the low cloud cover and encroaching chill.†   (source)
  • Our attics and living rooms encroach on each other, deep into their invisible places.†   (source)
  • Her proximity to him, her encroachment of sacred bawana space, rattled him, distracted him.†   (source)
  • The black forest was encroaching on the green in a long, endless line that blocked the sun and burned the land to a crisp.†   (source)
  • Was he a selfish, avaricious, designing, deceitful villain, I should think he had encroached upon the old gentleman's prerogatives.†   (source)
  • He draped a blanket over his shoulders and drew it around them, cocooning her against the night and all encroachment.†   (source)
  • An internal darkness encroached on Joe's field of vision, until he seemed to be looking at the world through a tunnel.†   (source)
  • Observations at the necessary distance cannot be detailed, but such as have been made indicate consistently that living forms are in the process, although in the most profane shapes, of encroaching upon this fearsome desolation.†   (source)
  • The woods had been allowed to encroach on the field beyond the gatehouse, so Franklyn Flowers was able to use the brush for concealment and lead his men within twenty yards of the gates before emerging from the trees with the ram they'd fashioned back at camp.†   (source)
  • Trees and brush encroached on it, but it wasn't badly rutted, no doubt because few vehicles used it.†   (source)
  • He told her the whole story, quietly, impersonally, pronouncing no verdict, expressing no opinion, never encroaching on her emotions by any sign of concern for them, speaking with the shining austerity and the awesome power of facts.†   (source)
  • The encroachment of spoken language on the written has worried the writer Gore Vidal for decades.†   (source)
  • The road had been made in a long lost time: and for perhaps thirty miles below the Morannon it had been newly repaired, but as it went south the wild encroached upon it.†   (source)
  • He strained to see Clary and Jace through the encroaching darkness.†   (source)
  • Villages spill onto streets, the jungle encroaches on village.†   (source)
  • I let him cut me off in traffic, let him safely hit the exit ramp from the left lane, let him forget to use his blinker without extending any of my digits out the window or toward my horn because there should be one moment in my harried life when a car may encroach or cut off or pass and I let it go.†   (source)
  • "So if she does those things, she's encroaching.†   (source)
  • It seemed like an unbearable encroachment.†   (source)
  • Federal encroachment on state and municipal law-enforcement statutes.†   (source)
  • Everyone could see the encroachment on national rights.†   (source)
  • She zipped downtown on Lex, braking hard and muttering curses at a sidewalk vendor who encroached on the lane with his smoking glide cart.†   (source)
  • Her hair was wavy and dark and streaked with gray that she had allowed to encroach without resistance.†   (source)
  • Private local posts had encroached so far on the Imperial licenses that the two cities shut down their Thurn and Taxis offices.†   (source)
  • She threw the magazine down and got off at the next stop, so disturbed by this obscene encroachment on her memory that she aimlessly paced the sunlit walks around the museum and the botanic gardens for several hours before showing up at the office, where Dr. Blackstock commented on her haggard look: "Some ghost you've seen?"†   (source)
  • Sometimes the encroaching walls of mountains woke me by clapping at my ears.†   (source)
  • But the cemetery stood serene in the shadow of its hemlock trees, the tombstone markers solemn and patient and indifferent to the bug-filled heat, the field flowers encroaching on the graveyard grass, indifferent to what City Hall would think, neither troubled nor amused by the joke that had been played on the Batavia Chief of Police.†   (source)
  • Here and there a timber gully or firebreak formed a thin brown divide between the pines, seeming like Aaron's rod miraculously to hold apart massive seas of encroaching forest.†   (source)
  • Calhoun believed that the Constitutional Convention had not nationalized our government; that the sovereign states still retained "the right of judging …. when the Congress encroached upon the individual state's power and liberty.†   (source)
  • They stood there beside the cars, in the moment of parting, looking at the red-brick house with its shimmering hot roof, and the thick encroaching bush, and the group of black men moving off under the trees on their long walk.†   (source)
  • Darkness encroached at the edge of my vision.†   (source)
  • He caught his sword and shook the bubbling water droplets into the rapidly encroaching void.†   (source)
  • The window overlooked a side street, partly protected from the encroaching desert.†   (source)
  • The Morrigan and Bastet crowded closer, ignoring the rapidly encroaching nothingness.†   (source)
  • The Forest Dweller suddenly plunged down the hill toward the encroaching Horde.†   (source)
  • He pulled me along toward the east side of the yard, where the forest encroached.†   (source)
  • It encroached on the senate's authority until it had all the power.†   (source)
  • The "encroaching melancholy" made everything else seem uninteresting and insignificant.†   (source)
  • He found the signs of encroaching age sobering.†   (source)
  • The trees stood tall, like sentinels intent on keeping the sand from encroaching.†   (source)
  • However, power has an encroaching nature and must be stopped from overstepping its authority.†   (source)
  • The Sunday, the hour, too, were encroaching-real.†   (source)
  • As he scanned the piazza and waited, Langdon realized that despite the encroachment of modern buildings, the piazza still looked remarkably elliptical.†   (source)
  • But almost as soon as the Colonel left, the bugs encroached: no-see-ums (which, for the record, you can see) and mosquitoes hovered around me in such numbers that the tiny noise of their rubbing wings sounded cacophonous.†   (source)
  • So you encroached on my integrity.†   (source)
  • Most of these entrances had gone out of use years ago as encroaching buildings and limited real estate relegated side entrances to inconvenient alleyways.†   (source)
  • With horror he saw that some of the encroaching blackness was, in fact, a great army moving upon Myr Tariniel.†   (source)
  • The fast food chains are periodically sued by franchisees who are upset about encroachment, about inflated prices charged by suppliers, about bankruptcies and terminations that seemed unfair.†   (source)
  • The lights inside were bright, but they did little to alleviate the blackness of the encroaching forest.†   (source)
  • A group of McDonald's franchisees, unhappy with the chain's encroachment on their territories, has formed an organization called Consortium Members, Inc. The group issues statements through Richard Adams, a former McDonald's franchisee, because its members are reluctant to disclose their names.†   (source)
  • The forest encroached on both sides, leaving the road ahead only discernible for a few meters as it twisted, serpentlike, around the ancient trees.†   (source)
  • The bill would also place limits on encroachment, require "good cause" before a contract can be terminated, permit franchisees to form their own associations, allow them to purchase from a variety of suppliers, and give them the right to sue franchisors in federal court.†   (source)
  • After awhile, the others dragged mattresses and blankets into the room and made a nest around me, and we packed together for warmth against the encroaching chill.†   (source)
  • Craftsmen inlaid the medallion with polished black slate to represent evil's encroachment on the colored forest.†   (source)
  • I am certainly concerned that I might be rubbing Sunny the wrong way, encroaching too far and too fast into the wide territory she has set between us, which I have never thought ill of her for and have even looked upon with a certain measure of relief and gratitude; she has always been able to exercise her resolve, a trait that was difficult to handle when she was young but one I am beginning to appreciate more with each passing day.†   (source)
  • She had an image in her mind, something she might have seen on one of the nature channels—a series of hastily assembled buildings surrounded by an encroaching jungle, ruts in a curving dirt road out front, exotic birds chirping in the background—but she doubted that she was right.†   (source)
  • They drew closer to the edge of town, where the houses thinned and wilderness encroached on the city.†   (source)
  • They landed in the charred ruins of Carvahall, and Eragon wandered along streets fringed with encroaching grass and weeds.†   (source)
  • Once brothers in black had gone out every day with axes to cut back the encroaching trees, but those days were long past, and here the forest grew right up to the ice.†   (source)
  • …"destructive competition"; that in regions declared to be restricted, no more than one railroad would be permitted to operate; that in such regions, seniority belonged to the oldest railroad now operating there, and that the newcomers, who had encroached unfairly upon its territory, would suspend operations within nine months after being so ordered; that the Executive Board of the National Alliance of Railroads was empowered to decide, at its sole discretion, which regions were to be…†   (source)
  • Darkness encroached on his mind.†   (source)
  • They watched her with the fascinated gaze we give to a petted child encroaching upon the rights of a cross dog, or the pretty lady with her little riding whip in the cage of the lion.†   (source)
  • Some of the PAC men had already been on the island, and saw our arrival as an encroachment on their territory.†   (source)
  • Darkness encroached on her mind.†   (source)
  • But I realized that we should take whatever opportunity we could to build our strength for the challenges that lay ahead amid the dark uncertainty of the encroaching winter's night, and the perilous days and nights that might follow.†   (source)
  • He wore wrinkled chinos and a stretched-out cotton pullover, and the gray stubble of his hair had encroached on his cheeks and chin.†   (source)
  • The Constitution defines the boundaries between the branches, but paper barriers do not stop the encroaching spirit of power.†   (source)
  • States encroaching on the rights of the Union is as probable as the Union encroaching on the rights of the State governments.†   (source)
  • State Encroaches National Authorities†   (source)
  • Pennsylvania: Branch Encroachment†   (source)
  • Encroaching Nature of Power†   (source)
  • When the Pennsylvania Council of Censors met in 1783 and 1784, one objective was to ask if "the constitution had been violated, and whether the legislative and executive branches had encroached on each other."†   (source)
  • If government's powers need to be changed or one branch of government encroaches on the authorities of another branch, republican theory says that the people—the original authority—should make the corrections.†   (source)
  • But even if the adversaries of the proposed Constitution presume that the national rulers will ignore the motives of public good or the obligations of duty, I still ask: How would it aid ambition or encroachment?†   (source)
  • Ruin or encroachment, even upon priceless treasurcs and even in poverty, held no terror for her; it was simply some form of prying from without, and this she would not forgive.†   (source)
  • Other lights just striking into view, looking farther distant, showed moss shapes hanging, or slipped and broke matchlike on the water that so encroached upon the rim of ground they were standing on.†   (source)
  • We certainly won't encroach on your territory.†   (source)
  • No. Your private life doesn't concern me so long as it doesn't encroach on our business.†   (source)
  • It can surreptitiously encroach on the other branches.†   (source)
  • The States can defeat encroachments by the federal government.†   (source)
  • Lastly, the danger of judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority is often mentioned.†   (source)
  • Courts of justice guard a limited Constitution against encroachments by the legislature.†   (source)
  • With this support, they will effectively oppose encroachments by the national government.†   (source)
  • The president can use the veto to block legislative encroachments on the executive.†   (source)
  • In a republic, it helps block encroachments and oppressions by the legislature.†   (source)
  • Many States would oppose federal encroachments on States.†   (source)
  • Each branch needs both constitutional tools and personal motives to block encroachments.†   (source)
  • Impeachment powers give the legislature a check on executive encroachments.†   (source)
  • The men who make these encroachments often tell the people that they are great defenders of liberty.†   (source)
  • The State legislatures will block encroachments by the national government.†   (source)
  • Every State has an example of legislative power encroachments.†   (source)
  • And more blocks to dangerous encroachments may be necessary.†   (source)
  • And I noticed the wide berth everyone gave him, the bubble of space that no one dared to encroach on.†   (source)
  • It wasn't the cider which made me surpass myself, it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace.†   (source)
  • He was a senior too, a nice guy, but as soon as we'd started dating he wanted everyone to know it, and slowly began to encroach on my domain.†   (source)
  • Alex spent the next few minutes ferrying the items from the car, setting up camp near the picnic table closest to the dune, where high tide wouldn't encroach.†   (source)
  • And it was an unusual decision as well, I realize, to buy one for such a little girl, but I wasn't married or expecting to be—the other plot one buys being normally for a spouse—and I thought that it would be something like insurance, that we would always have a place for ourselves in the end, which no one could encroach or buy back or take away.†   (source)
  • The love of power may sometimes cause the legislature to encroach on other branches of the government.†   (source)
  • States Might Encroach On Union†   (source)
  • Encroachments can lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.†   (source)
  • However, the British House of Lords has not been able to defend itself against the continual encroachments of the House of Commons.†   (source)
  • More encroachments have been made on the trial by jury in New York since the Revolution than in Connecticut and Great Britain.†   (source)
  • State legislatures will jealously guard the citizens' rights against encroachments from the federal government.†   (source)
  • Therefore, all government officials are dependent on the legislature, making legislative encroachments even easier.†   (source)
  • I will only add that if a term of four years leaves a doubt of his firmness, that doubt is inconsistent with the worry about his encroachments.†   (source)
  • There is greater probability of encroachments by the States on the federal government, than by the federal government on the States.†   (source)
  • States can Block Encroachments†   (source)
  • Snow still falling through the dull light of the alley, banked whitely against the sill, encroaching on the pane.†   (source)
  • They had encroached upon a privacy.†   (source)
  • Nature had come into her own again and, little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers.†   (source)
  • Behind, between them and around them, like a solid wall, the ever-encroaching bodies, voices, faces at all heights, gestures at all heights, all converging upon him, craning, peering, haranguing, pointing him out, discussing him.†   (source)
  • I left Savannah the next day, but not before I had gone out to the cemetery to look at the Carruthers vault, where moss encroached upon the great name and the angel lacked one arm.†   (source)
  • Yes, there they were, blood-red and luscious, as I had seen them the evening before, great bushes of them, massed beneath the open window, encroaching on to the sweep of the drive itself.†   (source)
  • The woods came right down to the tangle of seaweed marking high water, encroaching almost to the rocks themselves, and at the fringe of the woods was a long low building, half cottage, half boat-house, built of the same stone as the breakwater.†   (source)
  • Between the regularly spaced oaks stood pedestals on which classical marbles—draped and undraped, male and female, stained by weathers and leaf acid and encroaching lichen, looking as though they had, in fact, sprouted dully out of the clinging black-green humus below them—stared out at the passer-by with the faintly pained, heavy, incurious unamazement of cattle.†   (source)
  • An uncertain movement began among them, in which some encroachment was made.†   (source)
  • And the dark line of red slowly rose, encroaching upon the bright crimson.†   (source)
  • The other half was blue and was being slowly encroached upon by the dark storm-like pall.†   (source)
  • The forest here encroached upon the park with its straggling lines of spruce and groves of aspen.†   (source)
  • Always the dark moving streams and blots seemed encroaching upon these patches of grass.†   (source)
  • Meanwhile the plain of the Ganges encroaches on them with something of the sea's action.†   (source)
  • She wanted to run, fleeing from the encroaching prairie, demanding the security of a great city.†   (source)
  • Then he would drive away the encroaching gloom, trusting that a little time would dispel it.†   (source)
  • Sibert bellowed at the dark encroaching mass.†   (source)
  • They kept Milly awake and she could not shake the encroachment of morbid thoughts.†   (source)
  • The Town encroached still more extensively upon the fields than the University.†   (source)
  • "You see now, my queenly Blanche," began Lady Ingram, "she encroaches.†   (source)
  • This is encroaching on the domain of romance.†   (source)
  • Their former attitudes and their former silence were once more first encroached upon by Pancks.†   (source)
  • The stairs were still carpetless, and on the way up to her room she was arrested on the landing by an encroaching tide of soapsuds.†   (source)
  • Then came the hard times that brought every one on the Divide to the brink of despair; three years of drouth and failure, the last struggle of a wild soil against the encroaching plowshare.†   (source)
  • At once Clyde noted Roberta's face darken slightly, for here he was encroaching upon something that was still too closely identified with her early youth and convictions to permit infringement.†   (source)
  • Far to the west the sky was still clear, with shafts of sunlight shooting down from behind the encroaching clouds.†   (source)
  • Where a growth of cottonwood had held back the encroachment of the willows there usually was thick grass and underbrush.†   (source)
  • Then it was that Venters's primitive, childlike mood, like a savage's, seeing, yet unthinking, gave way to the encroachment of civilized thought.†   (source)
  • They looked about, and now the thing was sinking, and Minnie heard the low sip of the encroaching water.†   (source)
  • Gradually the trees thinned out, hard stony ground encroached upon the sand, bowlders appeared in the way; and presently, when Silvermane stepped out of the shade of the cottonwoods, Hare saw the lower end of the valley with its ragged vent.†   (source)
  • As the blaze subsided the shadows of the pines encroached darker and darker upon the circle of fading light.†   (source)
  • Lily considered with interest the expression of their faces: the girl's turned toward her companion's like an empty plate held up to be filled, while the man lounging at her side already betrayed the encroaching boredom which would presently crack the thin veneer of his smile.†   (source)
  • But the thought encroached upon her that it was not a dreamful habit of mind she had fallen into of late.†   (source)
  • Then this bump and scrape and lurch, this frightful proximity of the encroaching buffalo, this pell-mell pandemonium behind, was too much for her.†   (source)
  • Long, slender arms of the ocotillo encroached upon the road; broad, round leaves did likewise; fluted columns, fallen like timbers in a forest, lay along the narrow margins; the bayonet cactus and the bisnagi leaned threateningly; clusters of maguey, shadowed by the huge, looming saguaro, infringed upon the highway to Mezquital.†   (source)
  • Opposite his point the buffalo did not approach more closely; he observed, however, that to the eastward they appeared to be encroaching upon the river brakes.†   (source)
  • She did not think of the future or plan to meet it; she lived in the present and felt the encroaching of an old morbid and fatalistic mood, long a stranger to her.†   (source)
  • Long had Tom Doan felt the encroachment of a mood he had at one time striven against--a morbid estimate of self, a consciousness that this carnage would debase him utterly if he did not soon abandon it.†   (source)
  • Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal good-will.†   (source)
  • He returns to call to a fearful reckoning, those who, during his absence, have done aught that can be construed offence or encroachment upon either the laws of the land or the privileges of the crown.†   (source)
  • If I could have hoped to train him, I would have bought a lion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose upon the first intolerable robber who should dare to make an encroachment on my rights.†   (source)
  • M. Madeleine, who was not in the habit of laughing much oftener than Javert himself, burst out laughing now:— "As a mayor who had encroached on the province of the police?"†   (source)
  • Often these chains of barren rocks made a dip towards the sea, and encroached upon the scanty pasturage: but there was always enough room to pass.†   (source)
  • I began to doubt whether he were a servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer: still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a domestic's assiduity in attending on the lady of the house.†   (source)
  • In short, the victors seemed to have lost every trace of ferocity with their success, and appeared disposed to consult the most trifling of the wants of that engrossing people, who were daily encroaching on their rights, and reducing the Red-men of the west, from their state of proud independence to the condition of fugitives and wanderers.†   (source)
  • It is a picturesque expanse, framed in lofty crags in large strata, encrusted with white salt—a superb sheet of water, which was formerly of larger extent than now, its shores having encroached with the lapse of time, and thus at once reduced its breadth and increased its depth.†   (source)
  • In Madame Dubuc's time the old woman felt that she was still the favorite; but now the love of Charles for Emma seemed to her a desertion from her tenderness, an encroachment upon what was hers, and she watched her son's happiness in sad silence, as a ruined man looks through the windows at people dining in his old house.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)