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Wiktionary

infringe

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin infringere (“to break off, break, bruise, weaken, destroy”), from in (“in”) + frangere (“to break”).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ɪnˈfɹɪnd͡ʒ/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪndʒ

Verb

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infringe (third-person singular simple present infringes, present participle infringing, simple past and past participle infringed)

  1. (transitive) To break or violate a treaty, a law, a right, etc.
    • 1951, T. S. Lascelles, “British Railway Signalling Since 1925”, in Railway Magazine, number 600, page 226:
      The patent situation, too, played a part in this, as often a firm sought to produce something which would achieve a given result, and yet not infringe a patent held by another; or a railway engineer would think of a device of his own that would free him of obligation to some manufacturer.
    • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:
      According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.
  2. (intransitive) To break in or encroach on something.
    Near-synonym: impinge
  3. (transitive, dated) To furnish or embellish with a fringe.

Synonyms

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(Break or violate a treaty, a law): transgress

Derived terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Latin

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Verb

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īnfringe

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of īnfringō

Portuguese

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Verb

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infringe

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

Spanish

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Verb

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infringe

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