noun
Freq #48726
Meanings
-
1
noun
One who interferes, intrudes or gets involved where not welcome, particularly a self-interested intruder.
They disliked the interloper, and forced him to leave.
Thesaurus
Etymology
From inter- + loper (“runner, rover”), as in landloper (“vagrant”) (from lope (“to leap, to jump”) (originally dialectal)). Originally spelt enterloper and used in specific sense, “unauthorized trader trespassing on privileges of chartered companies”, later general sense of “self-interested intruder” from 1630s.