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unobtrusive
in a sentence

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  • In tone it was delicate and unobtrusive; and yet, it had a definitive suggestion of dismissal—which was apt to put one in a philosophical frame of mind.†   (source)
  • The girl doesn't look up, only tries to make herself smaller, unobtrusive, so the officer will ignore her.†   (source)
  • Unobtrusive things, obviously, so Muggles don't go picking them up and playing with them … stuff they'll just think is litter….†   (source)
  • She saw the nurse standing near the entrance to the duty room, unobtrusively crying.†   (source)
  • Etta had unobtrusively brought me a cup of coffee from the kitchen with a couple of aspirins on the saucer.†   (source)
  • We will come to the water's edge and lie on the grass and there will be a small, unobtrusive sign that says, THis is THE REAL WORLD, MUCHACHOS, AND WE ARE ALL IN IT-B. TRAVEN… Charles Bowden Blood Orchid Several people who were on Everest last May have told me they've managed to move beyond the tragedy.†   (source)
  • Polly was so quiet, so unobtrusive a presence, that we didn't notice she wasn't at breakfast.†   (source)
  • This was hardly an unobtrusive escape.†   (source)
  • The second male hovered unobtrusively behind them, slighter than the leader, his light brown hair and regular features both nondescript.†   (source)
  • In classic sniper style, Vie is reticent, unobtrusive.†   (source)
  • I will see it's done unobtrusively.†   (source)
  • When they are it's usually a small sign hiding unobtrusively in the weeds and that's all.†   (source)
  • When the dance was finished, I made my way through the squeeze of the people as unobtrusively as possible.†   (source)
  • Her shorts were blinding white, her legs not too curved but striking in their unobtrusive muscularity.†   (source)
  • He had an extensive collection of joke books and books of magic tricks, and he drew upon these resources to naturally and unobtrusively become the center of attention at any social gathering.†   (source)
  • I was more passive, more unobtrusive; I did not ask for things, but instead let people tell me what to do.†   (source)
  • She wanted to remain as unobtrusive as possible, so she chose a seat about three rows from the back and away from the aisle.†   (source)
  • As images he'd taken just a month earlier, of Fatima, Nargiz, and their classmates, smiling over their textbooks in the newly built Gultori Girls Refugee School, flashed across the screen, Mortenson noticed a professorial-looking middle-aged male customer leaning around a corner, trying to unobtrusively study a display of multifunction digital watches.†   (source)
  • Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt.†   (source)
  • I wish you . would play the music,' I said softly, unobtrusively, but as persuasively as possible.†   (source)
  • When we were done, I added to the garland at the top a crescent-shaped moon, as slender and unobtrusive as Beautiful Moon herself.†   (source)
  • Always unobtrusive and polite.†   (source)
  • Because it happened to me, I was able to unobtrusively collect enough notebooks to fill a bathtub.†   (source)
  • While throwing unobtrusive looks in the direction of the entrance hall, Franz heard his eighteen-year-old daughter, Marie-Anne, holding forth at the other end of the room.†   (source)
  • When I turned around, though, he was just sitting there, quiet and unobtrusive, the same way he had been for the last couple of weeks.†   (source)
  • But I was sure I wouldn't be sent down to the planet this time—there would be no orchards for One Esk, no visits (unofficial, as unobtrusive as possible) to choral society meetings.†   (source)
  • Unobtrusively Alex reached under his jacket for his Beretta automatic.†   (source)
  • But Dad, in his unobtrusive way, finally persuaded her to let me go.†   (source)
  • Three fingers splayed unobtrusively on the table, with the knuckles turning white, kept him from swaying.†   (source)
  • Years of service in the Kingsguard had taught the white knight how to remain unobtrusive when she was entertaining, but he was never far.†   (source)
  • The doctor who arrived was a gray-haired man with a mild, thoughtful face and a firmly, unobtrusively confident manner.†   (source)
  • Even though she was quiet, almost unobtrusive at the moment, he didn't believe he'd be able to do that with Bryan Mitchell.†   (source)
  • Steve will be unobtrusive.†   (source)
  • It seems like it takes forever to find a quiet place in an unobtrusive corner.†   (source)
  • The figure was small and unobtrusive, and Max's temper flared upon seeing him.†   (source)
  • Hunkering down to make myself as small as possible, I wormed my way into the rocks and did my best to be unobtrusive.†   (source)
  • We can't just walk unobtrusively up and down the street.†   (source)
  • It's just a man failing to reappear, that's all —now you see him, now you don't, that's the only thing that's real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back-an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.†   (source)
  • Their shadow was everywhere, but it was an unobtrusive shadow.†   (source)
  • His Esper secretary unobtrusively accompanied him like a trained dog.†   (source)
  • She scrubbed and swept and polished; housework was quite a new thing to her; all her life natives had done the work for her, as silently and as unobtrusively as fairies.†   (source)
  • Fang waited for him to get his food and unobtrusively led him to the most private booth.   (source)
    unobtrusively = in a manner that fits in so as not to attract much attention or disturb others
  • She was eating saltines and juice, the only things she could keep down, while I tried to eat my potato chips quietly and unobtrusively.   (source)
    unobtrusively = in a manner that fits in so as not to disturb
  • The videographer was so unobtrusive, we forgot she was there.
    unobtrusive = fitting in so as not to attract much attention or disturb
  • Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness.   (source)
    unobtrusive = subtle (fitting in so as not to attract much attention or disturb)
  • It was easy enough to slip unobtrusively past them all.†   (source)
  • He stood unobtrusively behind the newel post now, trying not to be obnoxious about it.†   (source)
  • An unobtrusive little structure stood against a hillside, on a rising slant of rocky ground.†   (source)
  • Two and a half minutes later he raised his head and, as unobtrusively as possible, glanced around.†   (source)
  • We must be as quick and as unobtrusive as possible.†   (source)
  • Webb took out his leather money clip and unobtrusively removed an American $20 bill.†   (source)
  • He hasn't yet produced it; it's in a wicker basket — a shopping basket, actually, borrowed from Dora — which he has placed unobtrusively by the side of his chair.†   (source)
  • Patiently and unobtrusively Atticus had taught him everything Henry knew about his craft, but Henry sometimes wondered if he would be as old as Atticus before he reduced law to his possession.†   (source)
  • On nights when big events in Jackson Park drew visitors away from the Midway, "could not several of the many varieties of 'heathen,' black, white and yellow, be cheaply hired to mingle, unobtrusively, but in full native costume, with the crowd on the Main Court?"†   (source)
  • Neither of them voiced their worries, though Eragon unobtrusively prepared to leave-in case a detachment of soldiers left the city and headed toward their camp.†   (source)
  • He looked around at the clusterings of guests, the jeweled hands clutching drinks (and the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers).†   (source)
  • The only tricky part was doing this in an unobtrusive way, so as to avoid attracting Muggle attention.†   (source)
  • Carrying his canvas knapsack as unobtrusively as possible by the straps, the patient walked down the flagstone path to the entrance of the restaurant.†   (source)
  • The Zhongguo ren remained outside, his hand unobtrusively under his loose tunic, his own eyes darting about the crazy street, a thoroughfare he could not understand.†   (source)
  • The small purple blossoms were unobtrusive, but they suffused the air with a warm fragrance that-for Eragon-evoked summers of fresh-picked raspberries and scythed fields turning bronze under the sun.†   (source)
  • "I had hoped we could enter the camp without attracting undue attention," Arya said, "but I suppose I should have realized we could not be unobtrusive with Saphira around.†   (source)
  • His shoulders rise and fall unobtrusively in concert with his breathing, like an empty boat bobbing on gentle early-morning waves.†   (source)
  • When Mr. Bonn saw this, his manner became exceedingly meek and unobtrusive, as though he wished to simply shrink out of existence.†   (source)
  • It seemed powerfully expressive as was his unobtrusive voice, and I was at a loss finally to fully anatomize why.†   (source)
  • With the removal of the ugly coffins, as well as the beached, damaged speedboat, and the soothing words over the government radio along with the intermittent, unobtrusive appearances of the armed guards, a sense of normalcy returned-not total, of course, for there was a mourning figure among them, but he was out of sight and, they were told, would soon leave.†   (source)
  • He pointed to an unobtrusive object the size of a radio cabinet in a corner of the room: "There's the motor you wanted," and chuckled at her gasp, at the involuntary jolt that threw her forward, "Don't bother studying it, you won't give it away to them now."†   (source)
  • It was oil that ran in a glittering curve from the mouth of a pipe into a tank at the foot of the wall, as the only confession of the tremendous secret struggle inside the stone, as the unobtrusive purpose of all the intricate machinery-but the machinery did not resemble the installations of an oil derrick, and she knew that she was looking at the unborn secret of the Buena Esperanza Pass, she knew that this was oil drawn out of shale by some method men had considered impossible.†   (source)
  • And as the shadows became more prominent, other people unobtrusively appeared along the beach and on the long dock that extended out over the water.†   (source)
  • His weekly seminars often continued far beyond the hour when they were scheduled to end, so Marie never planned dinner, knowing they would go out to eat, their two unobtrusive guards somewhere in the darkness behind them — as one was walking across the barely-visible field behind him now, the other no doubt inside the gym.†   (source)
  • They moved about the house and grounds unobtrusively, eyes constantly alert, each with either a concealed or an unconcealed weapon, except for the medical personnel.†   (source)
  • It had been followed by a few cocktails at the home of Orren Boyle, with only one unobtrusive gentleman from Argentina sitting silently in a corner, while two executives from Washington and a few friends of unspecified positions had talked about national resources, metallurgy, mineralogy, neighborly duties and the welfare of the globe-and had mentioned that a loan of four billion dollars would be granted within three weeks to the People's State of Argentina and the People's State of…†   (source)
  • A last cab rounded the circle, about to join the line when Jason rushed into the street, holding up the palms of his hands unobtrusively.†   (source)
  • She sidestepped her way around the players to the right corner and spoke quickly to the dealer, who reached under the counter and unobtrusively gave her the folded note.†   (source)
  • These were neither guests nor service employees; they were armed guards, each dressed in a dark brown tropical uniform and-again unobtrusively-with a MAC-10 machine pistol strapped to his belted waist.†   (source)
  • But a small man who sat unobtrusively in the best armchair of the room, apart from the others, content to be ignored and fully aware that none of them could be unconscious of his presence, glanced at Lawson, then at Mouch, and said with brisk cheerfulness, "That's the line, Wesley.†   (source)
  • Instead, he had unobtrusively read their identification tags and, after they left, wrote the names down and placed the pieces of paper with his personal belongings in the bureau drawer.†   (source)
  • A weapon that could be fired or released silently, unobtrusively from a restricted, densely populated area, its effect delayed long enough for the killer to reposition himself and make a clean escape.†   (source)
  • 'Sometimes I think the time passes more quickly when we are flooded with problems,' said the second, somewhat older clerk to his younger associate-in-training as he removed the half-page computer print-out from beneath the counter and unobtrusively shoved it into his pocket.†   (source)
  • He had so many things to do before 4: 30, when he intended to station himself unobtrusively somewhere near the employees' exit, or down inside the hotel garage, or wherever he learned he could follow and trap the waxen-faced Liang, his first connection.†   (source)
  • I noticed that Poirot followed them unobtrusively.†   (source)
  • He was wise and made himself unobtrusively scarce at proper times.†   (source)
  • He studied the lieutenant unobtrusively with little astute eyes.†   (source)
  • The sole was so simple and unobtrusive that Rex failed to notice it.†   (source)
  • Only the Indian boy obeyed, sliding unobtrusively out with his look of alien happiness.†   (source)
  • I remembered Frank, his quiet turning of the subject, the way he had come to Maxim's aid in his quiet unobtrusive manner if there was ever any question of difficulty.†   (source)
  • So he stayed and, gradually, unobtrusively, a large part of the burden of Tara shifted from Scarlett's shoulders to the bony shoulders of Will Benteen.†   (source)
  • The real value of the quiet, unobtrusive work which Glubose has been doing for years on this old woman can be gauged by the way in which her belly now dominates her whole life.†   (source)
  • The mouth of the trumpet was against the wall, and Lombard, pushing it aside, indicated where two or three small holes had been unobtrusively bored through the wall.†   (source)
  • The old woman served the meal in unobtrusive silence, and disappeared from the house as soon as she could afterward.†   (source)
  • He paused; then, as Poirot did not speak, he made an apologetic little bow and after a momentary hesitation left the dining-car in the same quiet unobtrusive fashion as he had come.†   (source)
  • The house, the brown, unpainted and unobtrusive bungalow is small too and by bushing crape myrtle and syringa and Althea almost hidden save for that gap through which from the study window he watches the street.†   (source)
  • They had all of them the same quiet way of moving, whether their pace was swift or slow, and the same unobtrusive demeanour: an Indian wrapped in his bright blanket, seated upon his mule or walking beside it, moving through the pale new-budding sage-brush, winding among the sand waves, as if it were his business to pass unseen and unheard through a country awakening with spring.†   (source)
  • He took the cups from me and handed them to people, and when my answers seemed more than usually vague owing to my concentration on the silver teapot he quietly and unobtrusively put in his small wedge to the conversation, relieving me of responsibility.†   (source)
  • And now, as Scarlett looked sadly back, she realized that Melanie had always been there beside her with a sword in her hand, unobtrusive as her own shadow, loving her, fighting for her with blind passionate loyalty, fighting Yankees, fire, hunger, poverty, public opinion and even her beloved blood kin.†   (source)
  • He could appear at any moment in any part of the building—and his presence was as unobtrusive as an electric shock.†   (source)
  • It is an unobtrusive little vice which she shares with nearly all women who have grown up in an intelligent circle united by a clearly defined belief; and it consists in a quite untroubled assumption that the outsiders who do not share this belief are really too stupid and ridiculous.†   (source)
  • Too good to be true!" said Scarlett's joyful heart as she slipped unobtrusively into the pink-and-yellow-draped booth that was to have been the McLure girls'.†   (source)
  • This was just like Toohey, thought Keating; this pose amidst the severe fastidiousness of his living room; a single canvas by a famous artist on the wall behind him—and the rest of the room unobtrusive like a monk's cell; no, thought Keating, like the retreat of a king in exile, scornful of material display.†   (source)
  • She watched the unobtrusively gracious way their dinner was served, she looked at the white tablecloth against the deep red of the mahogany walls.†   (source)
  • John Erik Snyte testified modestly and unobtrusively that he had employed Roark in his office, that Roark had been an unreliable, disloyal and unscrupulous employee, and that Roark had started his career by stealing a client from him.†   (source)
  • Madeline, delaying at the door, took a sharp but unobtrusive glance down the great, barnlike hall.†   (source)
  • It was an unobtrusive, almost secret aid which she rendered to the Gentile families of the village.†   (source)
  • Always Joan felt the eyes of these men upon her, mostly in unobtrusive glances, except Gulden's.†   (source)
  • And certain unobtrusive measures were taken absolutely to insure this point.†   (source)
  • This unobtrusive tenant was Jean Valjean, the young girl was Cosette.†   (source)
  • On the Monday night after Jimmy wrote this letter, Ben Price jogged unobtrusively into Elmore in a livery buggy.†   (source)
  • It made him nervous to feel himself an intruder; but he had learned to hide his feelings, and they found him quiet and unobtrusive.†   (source)
  • To her surprise, many of Mrs. Cass's neighbors came unobtrusively to the back door of the little cottage and made sympathetic inquiries.†   (source)
  • Without forcing himself upon the public notice, modest and unobtrusive, this young prince was concerned with much that happened in the world in general.†   (source)
  • He had moved his bed near her wagon, and his presence there was significant of his unobtrusive guardianship.†   (source)
  • He, who made every one happy in a beautiful, unobtrusive way, was most kind and tender to Miss Sullivan and me.†   (source)
  • He had spoken out of the side of his mouth, as if he hoped his words would reach Mrs. McKisco by a circuitous and unobtrusive route; in a minute he had shoved off into the water and his long body lay motionless toward shore.†   (source)
  • And those young men who served the guests of such an institution as this, were, in the main, possessed of efficient and unobtrusive manners.†   (source)
  • Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the light-hearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company, practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich silence after the expense and strain of gaiety.†   (source)
  • To make the call as unobtrusive as possible, they left the carriage by the wicket leading down from the high road to the dairy-house, and descended the track on foot, side by side.†   (source)
  • But in fact this unobtrusiveness of demeanour may have proceeded from a certain unaffected modesty of manhood sometimes accompanying a resolute nature, a modesty evinced at all times not calling for pronounced action, and which shown in any rank of life suggests a virtue aristocratic in kind.†   (source)
  • At the end of five minutes she returned unobtrusively with a green baize board, and began playing patience.†   (source)
  • So soft was her step, it failed to make even a sound, and but for the magical thrill imparted by her genial touch, as other unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided away un-perceived—unsought.†   (source)
  • The director had, no doubt, seen the anxiety in K.'s eyes as he tried to cope with this dialect of Italian, he joined in with this conversation in a way that was so adroit and unobtrusive that he seemed to be adding no more than minor comments, whereas in fact he was swiftly and patiently breaking into what the Italian said so that K. could understand.†   (source)
  • With the matchless nerve that characterized the great gunmen of the day there was a cool, unobtrusive manner, a speech brief, almost gentle, certainly courteous.†   (source)
  • A ranger had made a quiet, unobtrusive call upon these friends and left this message, "Tell Buck Duane to ride into Captain MacNelly's camp some time after night.†   (source)
  • Like some poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for their presumption.†   (source)
  • She was dressed in quiet colors, and wore her expensively unobtrusive toilet with a grace that might have come from years of practice.†   (source)
  • The two footmen and Matvey, in white cravats, did their duty with the dishes and wines unobtrusively, quietly, and swiftly.†   (source)
  • The poor mulatto woman, whose simple faith had been well-nigh crushed and overwhelmed, by the avalanche of cruelty and wrong which had fallen upon her, felt her soul raised up by the hymns and passages of Holy Writ, which this lowly missionary breathed into her ear in intervals, as they were going to and returning from work; and even the half-crazed and wandering mind of Cassy was soothed and calmed by his simple and unobtrusive influences.†   (source)
  • Some unobtrusive touch had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne's toilet which rendered her fresh and pretty face yet more attractive.†   (source)
  • She carried these decided judgments within her in the most unobtrusive way: they rooted themselves in her mind, and grew there as quietly as grass.†   (source)
  • The moon, too, which had long been climbing overhead, and unobtrusively melting its disk into the azure,—like an ambitious demagogue, who hides his aspiring purpose by assuming the prevalent hue of popular sentiment,—now began to shine out, broad and oval, in its middle pathway.†   (source)
  • He was bound also to evolve other Terpsichorean figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers, cellar-hatches, church buttresses, and the overhanging angles of walls which, originally unobtrusive, had become bow-legged and knock-kneed.†   (source)
  • …in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations."†   (source)
  • Playful discussions—sometimes serious ones—were going forward, in which both Stephen and Maggie revealed themselves, to the admiration of the gentle, unobtrusive Lucy; and it more than once crossed her mind what a charming quartet they should have through life when Maggie married Philip.†   (source)
  • Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sash-window, facing the East on the back court-yard of the house.†   (source)
  • A composed and unobtrusive self-sustainment was noticeable in Daniel Doyce—a calm knowledge that what was true must remain true, in spite of all the Barnacles in the family ocean, and would be just the truth, and neither more nor less when even that sea had run dry—which had a kind of greatness in it, though not of the official quality.†   (source)
  • The deacon's hand in a plush cuff accepted a three-rouble note unobtrusively, and the deacon said he would put it down in the register, and his new boots creaking jauntily over the flagstones of the empty church, he went to the altar.†   (source)
  • It is probable that this handsome but rude woodsman had never before found himself so awkwardly placed, though the inclination which Hetty felt for him (a sort of secret yielding to the instincts of nature, rather than any unbecoming impulse of an ill-regulated imagination), was too pure and unobtrusive to have created the slightest suspicion of the circumstance in his mind.†   (source)
  • Only then will our order have the power unobtrusively to bind the hands of the protectors of disorder and to control them without their being aware of it.†   (source)
  • It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundred years.†   (source)
  • Assuredly their wonted fires must have lived in Fanny's ashes when events were so shaped as to chariot her hither in this natural, unobtrusive, yet effectual manner.†   (source)
  • It throws its unobtrusive tinge throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and a reflected gleam upon the polish of the furniture.†   (source)
  • Those who went away, taking what they could and abandoning their houses and half their belongings, did so from the latent patriotism which expresses itself not by phrases or by giving one's children to save the fatherland and similar unnatural exploits, but unobtrusively, simply, organically, and therefore in the way that always produces the most powerful results.†   (source)
  • Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself—"Is that my Pearl?"†   (source)
  • She saw only that he was quiet and unobtrusive, and she liked him for it.†   (source)
  • Fitzgerald is an unobtrusive problem-solver throughout the poem.†   (source)
  • Colonel Brandon's delicate, unobtrusive enquiries were never unwelcome to Miss Dashwood.†   (source)
  • Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power; and she would have tried to sooth and tranquilize her still more, had not Marianne entreated her, with all the eagerness of the most nervous irritability, not to speak to her for the world.†   (source)
  • But here, Elinor could neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she assisted Marianne from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw only an emotion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender than pity, and in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise.†   (source)
  • He walked back the way he had come and went into the hotel, its spastic neon sign obtrusively jutting into the street.   (source)
    obtrusively = in a manner demanding attention
    standard prefix: Unobtrusive is encountered more than twice as commonly as any form of obtrusive without the prefix un-. The prefix "un-" in unobtrusively means not and reverses the meaning of obtrusively. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • She was appalled by West Egg, ...by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing.   (source)
    obtrusive = attracting undesired attention; or imposing on others
  • Her rooms were so silent that the music seemed obtrusive.†   (source)
  • The doorknob in her hand as she turned it felt obtrusively cool and hard.†   (source)
  • From the kitchen window of his obtrusive house, directly across from the Main Academy Building, Headmaster White could see the small rectangle of bare ground where Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen had spent the night.†   (source)
  • Sedges and ferns and graceful bulrush would be planted on the banks of the Wooded Island to conjure density and intricacy and "to slightly screen, without hiding, flowers otherwise likely to be too obtrusive."†   (source)
  • still, as hard as I'd tried, I hadn't been able to stay away from Pippa, I'd hovered obtrusively and hated myself for it, so painfully excited had I been by her nearness: her bare feet at breakfast, bare legs, her voice.†   (source)
  • For years she had been the first thing I remembered when I woke up, the last thing that drifted through my mind as I went to sleep, and during the day she came to me obtrusively, obsessively, always with a painful shock: what time was it in London? always adding and subtracting, totting up the time difference, compulsively checking the London weather on my phone, 53 degrees Fahrenheit, 10:12 p.m. and light precipitation, standing on the corner of Greenwich and Seventh Avenue by…†   (source)
  • The police knew that she had a motorcycle, and it would be even more obtrusive to take it out of storage from the apartment building on Lundagatan.†   (source)
  • Farrell was weeping, not obtrusively but with the sparkling, honest tears welling up at the edge of his eyelids, and I turned away with such a feeling of shame and humiliation that years later I am able to recapture the slightly fevered, faintly nauseous sensation that swept over me.†   (source)
  • They said no more about the red boxes, but next morning he put them in the medicine cupboard in the bathroom, at the back, where they would not be obtrusive but where she could hardly fail to see them.†   (source)
  • They stepped with obtrusive care around his fault, filled pleasantly with Christmas and mercy.†   (source)
  • Richard and I thought it could be done with less obtrusiveness after dark.†   (source)
    standard prefix: Unobtrusive is encountered more than twice as commonly as any form of obtrusive without the prefix un-. The prefix "un-" in unobtrusively means not and reverses the meaning of obtrusively. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • No, nothing obtrusive, no coarse claims on her.†   (source)
  • 'This is a very obtrusive lad!' said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and knitting his brows on him.†   (source)
  • Not the less, however, came this importunately obtrusive sense of change.†   (source)
  • But he was positively obtrusive at this moment, and his dimpled hands were quite disagreeable.†   (source)
  • The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this kind than amid woodland scenery.†   (source)
  • Sir Leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive sounds, says, "True."†   (source)
  • The great estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire were less obtrusive here, and the appearance of the land was neither aristocratic nor suburban.†   (source)
  • She glanced about, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gryce; but her eyes lit instead on the glossy countenance of Mr. Rosedale, who was slipping through the crowd with an air half obsequious, half obtrusive, as though, the moment his presence was recognized, it would swell to the dimensions of the room.†   (source)
  • He wasn't obtrusive about his heart.†   (source)
  • I remembered the words that M. Vinteuil had used to my parents in apologising for an obtrusive sheet of music.†   (source)
  • To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what did it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness and guilt on a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of the possibilities of beautiful intercourse?†   (source)
    standard affixes: The meaning of obtrusion will be easier to remember if you think of it in terms of the more common words, obtrusive and unobtrusive. Obtrusive is encountered far more frequently than obtrusion. The suffix -sion makes a noun while the suffix -sive makes an adjective. Unobtrusive is encountered more than twice as commonly as any form of obtrusive without the prefix un-. The prefix "un-" in unobtrusive means not and reverses the meaning of obtrusive. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • Her freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment.†   (source)
  • The house, its furnishings, the manner in which dinner was served, were in immense contrast to what he had met in the great places on Long Island, where the servants were so obtrusive that they had positively to be bumped out of the way, or even in the houses of more conservative "Union Club" families.†   (source)
  • And then they both stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers with my right hand.†   (source)
  • In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw — Heathcliff — Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres — the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.†   (source)
  • The hand that held the cap rested lightly on the little ivory-mounted piano of Elizabeth, with neither rustic restraint nor obtrusive vulgarity.†   (source)
  • Mr. Tulliver felt very much as if the air had been cleared of obtrusive flies now the women were out of the room.†   (source)
  • From the ceiling, foreshortened Allegory, in the person of one impossible Roman upside down, points with the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively toward the window.†   (source)
  • To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst.†   (source)
  • As the sides of the scow were a little higher than usual, and the interior of the cabin had no more elevation than was necessary for comfort, this unusual addition had neither a very clumsy nor a very obtrusive appearance.†   (source)
  • Men are afraid lest some slight service rendered should draw them into an unsuitable acquaintance; they dread civilities, and they avoid the obtrusive gratitude of a stranger quite as much as his hatred.†   (source)
  • At length Ralph laid down his pen, and threw himself back in his chair as though he had made up his mind to allow the obtrusive current of reflection to take its own course, and, by giving it full scope, to rid himself of it effectually.†   (source)
  • These, like the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident.†   (source)
  • In one of its chambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men.†   (source)
  • With all the security which love of another and disesteem of him could give to the peace of mind he was attacking, his continued attentions—continued, but not obtrusive, and adapting themselves more and more to the gentleness and delicacy of her character—obliged her very soon to dislike him less than formerly.†   (source)
  • He stood as opposed to Captain Wentworth, in all his own unwelcome obtrusiveness; and the evil of his attentions last night, the irremediable mischief he might have done, was considered with sensations unqualified, unperplexed.†   (source)
  • There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more intolerable — at least to me — than any demeanour he could have assumed.†   (source)
  • …the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D—, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visiter, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the…†   (source)
  • …and sipped his coffee in peace over domestic matters of a calmer hue; but Mr. Yates, without discernment to catch Sir Thomas's meaning, or diffidence, or delicacy, or discretion enough to allow him to lead the discourse while he mingled among the others with the least obtrusiveness himself, would keep him on the topic of the theatre, would torment him with questions and remarks relative to it, and finally would make him hear the whole history of his disappointment at Ecclesford.†   (source)
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