Interfere

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪə(r)

Alternative forms

• enterfere obsolete

Origin

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

Full definition of interfere

Verb

1. (intransitive) To get involved or involve oneself, causing disturbance.I always try not to interfere with other people’s personal affairs.
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.

Derived terms

• interference