Word.ws English Dictionary

preferring

preferring is the present participle and gerund of prefer.

preferring is the present participle and gerund of preferre.

Meaning of prefer

Verb

prefer (third-person singular simple present prefers, present participle preferring, simple past and past participle preferred)

  1. (transitive) To be in the habit of choosing something rather than something else; to favor; to like better.
    • I prefer tea to coffee.
    Synonyms:
    fain, favor, forechoose
    Antonyms:
    disprefer
  2. (dated, transitive) To advance, promote (someone or something).
    • So ſhall you haue a ſhorter iourney to your deſires, by the meanes I ſhall then haue to preferre them. And the impediment moſt profitably remoued, without the which there were no expectation of our proſperitie.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  3. (transitive) To present or submit (something) to an authority (now usually in "to prefer charges").
    • […], let him go,
      And preſently preferre his ſuite to Cæſar.1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  4. (obsolete, transitive) To put forward for acceptance; to introduce, recommend (to).
    • one Master David Hume, who making some use of his purse, gave him Letters to his friends in Scotland to preferre him to King Iames.1630, John Smith, chapter 1, in The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine Iohn Smith, London: Thomas Slater, page 2

Noun

preferring (plural preferrings)

  1. A preference; the choice of something preferred.
    • He gives our preferrings the bad name of the machinery of motives, but they are just what we feel in ourselves when we decide.1984, Steven M. Cahn, Patricia Kitcher, George Sher, Reason at Work: Introductory Readings in Philosophy, page 497

Forms of preferring

Verb
alternative formpræferring
Noun
pluralpreferrings

Questions about preferring

What does preferring mean?
Preferring means a preference; the choice of something preferred.
What is preferring the present participle and gerund of?
Preferring is the present participle and gerund of prefer.
What part of speech is preferring?
Preferring is a noun.
What is the plural of preferring?
The plural of preferring is preferrings.

Words near preferring in the dictionary

  1. preferrer
  2. preferrers
  3. preferres
  4. preferrest
  5. preferreth
  6. preferring
  7. preferrings
  8. prefers
  9. prefertile
  10. prefertility
  11. prefertilization

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preferring (page history and authors); prefer (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.

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Cite this entry: “preferring.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/preferring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.