impertinent

impertinent, officious, meddlesome, intrusive, obtrusiveare applied to persons and their acts and utterances and mean exceeding or tending to exceed the bounds of propriety regarding the interposition of oneself in another person's affairs.

Impertinent (see also RELEVANT) implies a concerning oneself more or less offensively with things which are another's business or, at least, not in any sense one's own business

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I should have liked to ask the girl for a word which would give my imagination its line. But how was one to venture so far? I can be rough sometimes but I am not naturally impertinent— Conrad

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approach complete strangers, ask them a battery of impertinent questions— S. L. Payne

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when he became hot and vulgar, she turned grande dame, so that he felt like an impertinent servant— Sinclair Lewis

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Officious implies the offering, often well-meant, of services, attentions, or assistance that are not needed or that are unwelcome or offensive

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'twas but the officious zeal of a well-meaning creature for my honor— Sterne

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I cannot walk home from office, but some officious friend offers his unwelcome courtesies to accompany me— Lamb

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the foremen grew more officious in manner and shouted their orders— Bromfield

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Meddlesome carries a stronger implication of annoying interference in other people's affairs than the preceding terms; it may imply the qualities of character suggested by any of the other words, but it usually also connotes a prying or inquisitive nature

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a meddlesome old man

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the people found the government unduly meddlesome

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it was in no way from any desire to interfere in other people's affairs ... he had none of my own meddlesome quality— Hugh Walpole

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Intrusive applies largely to persons, actions, or words that reveal a disposition to thrust oneself into other people's affairs or society or to be unduly curious about what is not one's concern

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Navajo hospitality is not intrusive. Eusabio made the Bishop understand that he was glad to have him there, and let him alone— Cather

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Obtrusive is applicable like intrusive and often carries very similar implications. Distinctively, however, it connotes objectionable actions more than an objectionable disposition and so stresses a thrusting forward of oneself, as into a position where one can harm more often than help or where one is unduly or improperly conspicuous

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rebels against a social order that has no genuine need of them and is disposed to tolerate them only when they are not obtrusive— Mencken

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Analogous words: interfering, meddling (see MEDDLE): arrogant, insolent (see PROUD): brazen, impudent, brash, barefaced, *shameless: *offensive, repugnant

Contrasted words: decent, *decorous, seemly, proper: reserved, reticent, *silent