Word.ws English Dictionary

preoccupate

preoccupate verb: to influence, to occupy (the mind) in advance; to be preoccupied with.

Verb

preoccupate (third-person singular simple present preoccupates, present participle preoccupating, simple past and past participle preoccupated)

  1. (obsolete) To influence, to occupy (the mind) in advance; to be preoccupied with.
    • the mad and fond curiositie of our nature, ammusing it selfe to preoccupate future things, as if it had not enough to doe to digest the present., Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, p.40
  2. (obsolete) To meet in advance; to forestall, pre-empt.

Forms of preoccupate

third-person singular presentpreoccupates
present participlepreoccupating
past participlepreoccupated
pastpreoccupated
alternative formpræoccupate

Origin of preoccupate

Borrowed from past participle stem of Latin praeoccupare, from prae- (“pre-”) + occupare (“occupy”); equivalent to pre- + occupate. Doublet of preoccupy.

Questions about preoccupate

What does preoccupate mean?
Preoccupate means to influence, to occupy (the mind) in advance; to be preoccupied with.
What part of speech is preoccupate?
Preoccupate is a verb.
What is the past tense of preoccupate?
The past tense of preoccupate is preoccupated.

Words near preoccupate in the dictionary

  1. preocclusion
  2. preoccupancies
  3. preoccupancy
  4. preoccupant
  5. preoccupants
  6. preoccupate
  7. preoccupated
  8. preoccupates
  9. preoccupating
  10. preoccupation
  11. preoccupational

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preoccupate (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: “preoccupate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/preoccupate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.