Word of the Day

: December 4, 2021

interloper

noun in-ter-LOH-per

What It Means

An interloper is a person or thing that intrudes in a place or sphere of activity.

// As he watched the doe and fawn grazing in the field, the photographer was struck by a feeling of being an interloper.

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interloper in Context

"For decades, physicists have suspected an interloper. A reclusive, hypothetical subatomic particle might be creeping into studies of neutrinos, nearly massless particles with no electric charge. A new study casts doubt on that idea…." — Emily Conover, Science News, 27 Oct. 2021

Did You Know?

The -loper part of interloper is believed to be either from an English dialectal word meaning "leap" or from a Dutch word meaning "to run." (The prefix inter- means "between" or "among.") An interloper is essentially one that jumps into the midst of things without an invitation to do so.