preen
/pɹiːn/
preen noun: a forked tool used by clothiers for dressing cloth.
Noun
preen (plural preens)
Verb (1)
preen (third-person singular simple present preens, present participle preening, simple past and past participle preened)
Verb (2)
preen (third-person singular simple present preens, present participle preening, simple past and past participle preened)
- To groom; to trim or dress the feathers with the beak.
- To spend time making oneself attractive and admiring one's appearance, e.g. in front of a mirror.
- Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson street. Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it.1922, James Joyce, Ulysses
- Synonyms:
- primp, smarten up
- To show off, posture, or smarm.
- His preening self-satisfaction, chest thrown forward as he settles into a chair in his mansion...1993, Scott Simmon, The Films of D W Griffith
- Impressed by their looks and their dancing, but not their singing, Mr. Farian called them Milli Vanilli and recorded an album of lightweight, preening dance-pop under their name, using uncredited studio musicians.1998 April 7, Neil Strauss, “Robert Pilatus, 32, Performer In Disgraced Band Milli Vanilli”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Synonyms:
- flex, fluff one's feathers, swagger, aura farm, boulevardier, cut a wide swath, cut it fat, cut round, exhibitionize, figure away
- To flatter.
- In Miller's view the play is expressive of a peculiarly Renaissance vision of the harmonious marriage within the orderly society: 'its spirit derives from Elizabethan Puritanism's view of the household as an orderly place in whichc the marriage is consecrated not in the church but in the orderly...1989, Graham Holderness, The Taming of the Shrew, page 112
- New York nurtured and preened the most sophisticated audiences in the nation.1992, Philip H. Ennis, The Seventh Stream: The Emergence of Rocknroll in American Popular Music, page 39
- Synonyms:
- jolly, puff, stroke, brush up to, collogue, flatter, flatterize, glaver, gloze, lay it on thick
- To comb; to make orderly.
- My two roommates are engineers who preen the diesels.2002, David G. Campbell, The Crystal Desert: Summers in Antarctica
- Preen the deer hair rearward around the hook shank, and take 3 tight thread wraps to secure it.2011, Jim Schollmeyer, Ted Leeson, Flies for Western Super Hatches, page 82
- To trim up, as trees.
- Adjusting his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, he gently preened the bush with his pruners.2007, J. P. De Sales, The Coming of the Reichchild, page 162
- He'd imagined he could see the whole world from there, whilst the people below tended to their window boxes and preened the rose bushes, making this idyllic village pretty for the tourists.2013, Hannah Graham, Beneath the Perfect World
- To improve the appearance of; groom; prettify.
- He brushed and preened the marquis, front and back. “Lucky we are, Your Grace, no gashes that I see. But the beard is in a woeful state —”2011, Brennan Pursell, The Spanish Match, page 26
- Clearly this is not heritage tourism development. Instead it recommends how to preen the city for the uncritical gaze of a kind of tourist who willingly accepts low-grade commercialized leisure.2011, Dean MacCannell, The Ethics of Sightseeing, page 200
preen meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
preen in Tamil
- அலகால் உடலைச் சுத்தம் செய்தல், மிகுந்த சிரத்தையுடன் அலங்காரம் செய், உடையணி, சாதனை, பண்பு இவற்றில் பெருமிதப்படு, நன்கு குளித்து
preen in Urdu
- چھانٹنا, پر ٹھیک کرنا, سنوارنا
preen in Malayalam
- അണിയിച്ചൊരുക്കുക
preen in Kannada
- ಅಂದಗೊಳಿಸು
More languagesFewer languages
Examples of preen in a sentence
- The crowning tragedy—or sick joke—is that those who have postured and preened the most ostentatiously about their devotion to the Constitution have been the most indifferent to its destruction.2012, Mike Lofgren, The Party Is Over:
- “Six look like dyin', and five dead,” preened the killer.2016, Jeanne Williams, Daughter of the Sword:
- Now Prossiden's finger was brandished, and preened the air in front of Onascam's face with florid implications.2019, J.E. Franklin, Crouching at the Door:
- He preened the registers, computer entries but of no avail.2020, Rohit Pagare, After the Dark, page 124:
Synonyms of preen
- primp
- smarten up
- flex
- fluff one's feathers
- swagger
- aura farm
- boulevardier
- cut a wide swath
- exhibitionize
- floss
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of preen
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | preens |
| alternative form (dialectal) | prin |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | preens |
| present participle | preening |
| past participle | preened |
| past | preened |
Origin of preen
From Middle English pren, from Old English prēon, from Proto-Germanic *preunaz (compare Icelandic prjónn (“pin, knitting-needle”), Danish pryne (“needle, eel-spear”)), of uncertain origin, but perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *brewn- (“protrusion, tip, edge”) (compare Lithuanian briaunà (“edge”), Albanian brez (“belt, girdle”)). Cognate with German Pfriem. The verb is from Middle English prenen, from pren (“a preen”), akin to German pfriemen.
Variant of prune (by influence of preen above). Attested in Chaucer (c. 1395) in the variants preyneth, prayneth, proyneth, prunyht, pruneth, from Old French proignier (“to trim the feathers with the beak”).
Words formed from preen
Phrases with preen
Words that rhyme with preen
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- glean
- between
- byzantine
- canteen
- greene
- Racine
- careen
- intervene
- lean
- wean
- Christine
- obscene
- routine
- skene
- spleen
- submarine
- cuisine
- gasoline
- irene
- red bean
- serene
- -ene
- baleen
- demean
- eleventeen
- fascine
- gombeen
- latrine
- pristine
- Qazvin
- sheen
- tangerine
- unclean
- unseen
- vaccine
- amine
- aquamarine
- Beane
- beseen
- bottine
- chopine
- Enigma machine
- Eugene
- gene
- in between
- internecine
- jean
- lien
Questions about preen
- What does preen mean?
- Preen means a forked tool used by clothiers for dressing cloth.
- What is preen in Tamil?
- Preen in Tamil is அலகால் உடலைச் சுத்தம் செய்தல், மிகுந்த சிரத்தையுடன் அலங்காரம் செய், உடையணி. See Preen meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use preen in a sentence?
- The crowning tragedy—or sick joke—is that those who have postured and preened the most ostentatiously about their devotion to the Constitution have been the most indifferent to its destruction.
- What part of speech is preen?
- Preen can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce preen?
- Preen is pronounced /pɹiːn/.
- What is the plural of preen?
- The plural of preen is preens.
Words near preen in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: preen (page history and authors); preen (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preen (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preen (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preen (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-preen.wav.
Cite this entry: “preen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/preen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.