preened

Verb (1)

preen (third-person singular simple present preens, present participle preening, simple past and past participle preened)

1. (transitive) To pin; fasten.

Verb (2)

preen (third-person singular simple present preens, present participle preening, simple past and past participle preened)

1. (ambitransitive) To groom; to trim or dress the feathers with the beak.
2. (intransitive, reflexive) 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

3. (intransitive) 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

   Synonyms:

   flex, fluff one's feathers, swagger, aura farm, boulevardier, cut a wide swath, cut it fat, cut round, exhibitionize, figure away

4. (transitive) 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

   Synonyms:

   jolly, puff, stroke, brush up to, collogue, flatter, flatterize, glaver, gloze, lay it on thick

5. (transitive) To comb; to make orderly.
   • My two roommates are engineers who preen the diesels.2002, David G. Campbell, The Crystal Desert: Summers in Antarctica

See all 11 meanings of preen