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unobtrusive

UK/(ˌ)ʌnəbˈtɹuːsɪv/US/ˌʌnəbˈtɹusɪv/
adjectiveC2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,774 of 15,258neutral

Unobtrusive means not attracting attention to itself. Quiet and unobtrusive, unobtrusive security, an unobtrusive design.

It is high praise for design and for service, where the best of both are the ones nobody notices. Of a person it means present without imposing, which is a harder thing than it sounds.

Definitions of unobtrusive

  1. 1adjectiveunobtrusiveNot attracting attention to itself.C2

    “The waiters were polite and unobtrusive, appearing only when needed.”

unobtrusive is a quality.

Where it comes from

Un- plus obtrusive, from Latin obtrudere, to thrust against.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *trewd-

  2. English, today

    unobtrusive

From un- + obtrusive.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

unobtrusive in the wild

  • A small and unobtrusive server program is on one machine, which is remotely manipulated by a client program with a graphical user interface on another computer system.

    Back Orifice

  • According to its producer it has delicate, unobtrusive aromatic note of neutral grain spirits.

    Biała Dama

  • Unobtrusive research (or unobtrusive measures) is a method of data collection used primarily in the social sciences.

    Unobtrusive research

  • The term unobtrusive measures was coined by Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, & Sechrest in a 1966 book titled Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences.

    Unobtrusive research

  • Pagoda (or "Pagode" in Dutch) is an unobtrusive variation of an observation tower in the Efteling amusement park in the Netherlands.

    Pagoda (Efteling)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.