Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 5th.
Today's word is interloper, spelled I-N-T-E-R-L-O-P-E-R.
Interloper is a noun.
An interloper is a person who intrudes in a place or sphere of activity.
They are not wanted or welcomed by the other people present.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the Waterloo Region Record: "My garden is wildlife-friendly,
sometimes too friendly. By not being overly concerned about interlopers, it welcomes birds and bugs now,
including beneficial insects. They help keep things in balance. Not so welcome are rabbits,
but they still find their way in." If you keep chickens,
a coyote loping around in the vicinity of your coop is not welcome.
You'd be justified, both semantically and etymologically, in calling such a coyote an interloper.
The -loper part of interloper shares an ancestor with the Old English verb hlēapan, meaning "to leap,"
and the Dutch verb lopen, meaning "to run." (The verb lope does too.) The prefix inter-
means "between" or "among," so an interloper is essentially one that leaps in among others (for example,
a flock of hens) without an invitation to do so.
Interloper made itself at home among English speakers in the late 1500s; the verb interlope,
which arrived close in tow in the early 1600s, is likely a back-formation.
With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.
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