interfere

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See also: interféré and interfère

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Old French entreferir, from entre- + ferir (“to hit, to strike”), itself from the Latin verb ferio.

Pronunciation

Verb

interfere (third-person singular simple present interferes, present participle interfering, simple past and past participle interfered)

  1. (intransitive) To get involved or involve oneself, causing disturbance.
    I always try not to interfere with other people’s personal affairs.
    • 1923 October, Robert Frost, “ The Axe-helve.”, in New Hampshire , New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 37:
      I’ve known ere now an interfering branch / Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me. / But that was in the woods, to hold my hand / From striking at another alder’s roots, / And that was, as I say, an alder branch.
  2. (intransitive, physics) (of waves) To be correlated with each other when overlapped or superposed.
    Correlated waves interfere to produce interesting patterns, while uncorrelated waves overlap without interfering.
    Where the radio-wave signals of the two radio stations interfere the listener hears nothing but noise.
  3. (mostly of horses) To strike one foot against the opposite foot or ankle in using the legs.
  4. (intransitive, followed by "with") To sexually molest, especially of a child.
    The investigation found the girls had been interfered with.

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

See also

Further reading

Galician

Verb

interfere

  1. (reintegrationist norm) inflection of interferir:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

Latin

Verb

interfēre

  1. second-person singular present active subjunctive of interfor

Portuguese

Verb

interfere

  1. inflection of interferir:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative
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