inroad
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɪnɹəʊd/
ipa: /ˈɪnˌɹoʊd/
Forms: form: inroads
Etymology: The noun is derived from in + road (“(obsolete) act of riding on horseback; hostile ride against a particular area, raid”).
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: […] That ſince that time he [Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus] was become the ſubject of King Henry [VIII] of England, his Majeſty's [James V of Scotland's] greateſt enemy; and was now the cauſe of all the Inroads made by the English into Scotland: […]
ref: 1537, David Scott, “Papers Illustrative of the Trial of Jonet Lady Glammys. I. Narrative Taken from the History of Scotland, by David Scott of the Inner Temple.”, in [Robert Pitcairn, compiler], Criminal Trials and Other Proceedings before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, part IX (Trials during the Reigns of King James the Fourth and Fifth), [Edinburgh]: Printed at the Bannatyne Club Press by Ballantyne and Co., published 1831, →OCLC, page 192:
text: [A] child knowing the heate of fire, will as readely iudge of the perrill, as the wiſeſt Senatour, of the inroad of a borderer, or the politick captaine, of the vnequall encoũter with his enimy, […]
ref: 1586, T[imothie] Bright, “The Particular Aunswere to the Obiections Made in the II Chapter”, in A Treatise of Melancholie. […], London: […] Thomas Vautrollier, […], →OCLC, page 75:
text: Whence is it that ſo many corrupt Opinions have made ſuch an Inroad on Proteſtant Religion, and the Profeſſion of it? Is it not from hence, that many have loſt an Experience of the power and efficacy of the Truth, and ſo have parted with it?
ref: 1683, Samuel Annesley, “The Chamber of Imagery in the Church of Rome Laid Open; or An Antidote against Popery. […] Sermon X.”, in A Continuation of Morning-Exercise Questions and Cases of Conscience, Practically Resolved by Sundry Ministers, in October, 1682, London: […] J. A. for John Dunton […], →OCLC, page 221:
text: [T]he Britains, left to ſhift for themſelves, and daily haraſſed by cruel Inroads from the Picts, were forced to call in the Saxons for their Defence; […]
ref: 1712 March 4 (date written; Gregorian calendar), J[onathan] Swift, A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue; […], 2nd edition, London: […] Benj[amin] Tooke, […], published 1712, →OCLC, page 9:
text: The brave and active Conſtantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the Alemanni; and his victories of Langres and Vindoniſſa appear to have been actions of conſiderable danger and merit.
ref: 1776, Edward Gibbon, chapter XIII, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 368:
text: While from their lovely climate, the poets native to their sweet south, the old ruins hallowed with the memories of other days, the lovely paintings, the still diviner statues, which had been their constant companions—the character had imperceptibly caught a tone of romance, calculated long to resist the inroads of worldliness and deceit.
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 181:
text: [A] certain English colonel passed though the former's country with a body of men-at-arms, on the very day when the O'Mahonys had made an inroad upon our territories, and carried off a frightful plunder of our flocks and herds.
ref: 1844 January–December, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “My Pedigree and Family.—Undergo the Influence of the Tender Passion”, in “The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. [The Luck of Barry Lyndon.]”, in Miscellanies: Prose and Verse, volume III, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1856, →OCLC, page 2:
text: And everywhere the people, or the populace, take their own government upon themselves; and open 'kinglessness,' what we call anarchy, […] is everywhere the order of the day. Such was the history, from Baltic to Mediterranean, in Italy, France, Prussia, Austria, from end to end of Europe, in those March days of 1848. Since the destruction of the old Roman Empire by inroad of the Northern Barbarians, I have known nothing similar.
ref: 1850 February 1, Thomas Carlyle, “No. I. The Present Time.”, in Latter-Day Pamphlets, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, pages 5–6:
text: If clerks do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are adopting the unprecedented and impossible course of taking the system seriously and doing it well.
ref: 1910, Gilbert K[eith] Chesterton, “The Modern Slave”, in What’s Wrong with the World, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, […], →OCLC, part III (Feminism: Or the Mistake about Woman), page 177:
text: On the Great North of Scotland section, always a stronghold of four-coupled engines, a great number of small 4-4-0s, some over fifty years old, were still going strong in 1945, but serious inroads are being made into their numbers now.
ref: 1954 May, John W. Grant, “A Railway Requiem”, in Railway Magazine, page 351:
text: [T]he discourse of ornament was energetically appropriated by those anxious to defend masculinity and protect feminine virtue against the inroads of luxury and its ill effects on morality.
ref: 2009, Marcia Pointon, “Fault Lines and Points of Light”, in Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery, New Haven, Conn.; London: […] [F]or the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Stories Touching Stones), page 19, column 1:
text: [I]n many European states, the whole notion of retirement at pensionable age and consequential entitlement to a pension seems to fall within the domain of social security law rather than forming part of the contract-based system of regulation of termination of employment. There may therefore be significant inroads into the notion of a unified or integrated contract-based system of regulation of termination of employment. However, in most European legal systems it would seem that these inroads do not encroach upon the essential integrity or unity of the contract-based system of regulation of termination of employment.
ref: 2011, Mark Freedland, Nicola Kountouris, “The Termination and Transformation of Employment Contracts”, in The Legal Construction of Personal Work Relations, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 224:
topics: government
military
politics
war
synonyms: foray
inbreak
inbreaking
infall
raid
glosses: An advance into enemy territory, an attempted invasion; an encroachment, an incursion.
examples: text: Three weeks into it, I am finally beginning to make inroads on this project.
text: You must have been fairly surprised at Dr. Glaser's inroads into reprogramming the brain.
ref: 1983 October 10, Eugenie Ross-Leming, Brad Buckner, “If Thoughts Could Kill”, in Scarecrow and Mrs. King, season 1, episode 3:
text: Even in our post-Darwinian society, with evolutionary theory making inroads in many areas of the social and human sciences, the cynics' insight retains an ability to stimulate and to provoke.
ref: 2005, Yiannis Gabriel, “Foreword”, in Ian Cutler, Cynicism from Diogenes to Dilbert, Jefferson, N.C.; London: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, pages 2–3:
text: These insights open up novel inroads in the area of neurorehabilitation by demonstrating that disorders such as amblyopia might be accessible to perceptual training protocols.
ref: 2014, Mark W. Greenlee, “The Neuronal Base of Perceptual Learning and Skill Acquisition”, in Stephen Billett, Christian Harteis, Hans Gruber, editors, International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning (Springer International Handbooks of Education), Dordrecht: Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, part II (Research Paradigms), page 330:
glosses: Often followed by in, into, or on: initial progress made toward accomplishing a goal or solving a problem.