Word of the day (March 15, 2014) inroad \IN-rohd\ noun 1 : a sudden hostile incursion : raid 2 : an advance or penetration often at the expense of someone or something — usually used in plural Examples: We began to find the country thinly inhabited, and the people rather confined to live in fortified towns, as being subject to the inroads anddepredations of the Tartars, who rob in great armies…. — From Daniel Defoes 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe Jones is at the crest of a wave of British snowboarders who have been making inroads on a discipline traditionally dominated by Americans. — From an Associated Press article by Will Graves, February 9, 2014 Did you know? Inroad is a combination of in and road, both of which are pretty mundane, as far as words go. But the first—and oldest—meaning of inroad hints at a meaning of road other than the way for traveling one. Beginning back in the days of Old English, road referred to an armed hostile incursion made on horseback. (Raid comes from this use of road and also formerly specified incursions on horseback.) Road has lost all of its former violent connotations, and inroad is shedding its as well. While inroads are often made at the expense of someone or something, they are at times simply advances, as when an artist is said to be making inroads into a community.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 10:39:35 +0000
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