Word.ws English Dictionary

preoccupies

preoccupies is the third-person singular simple present indicative of preoccupy.

Meaning of preoccupy

Verb

preoccupy (third-person singular simple present preoccupies, present participle preoccupying, simple past and past participle preoccupied)

  1. (transitive) To distract; to draw attention elsewhere.
    • The father tried to preoccupy the child with his keys.
  2. (transitive) To worry or concern (someone) so as to distract them.
    • It always preoccupies me when he acts like this.
    Synonyms:
    exercise
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To occupy or take possession of beforehand.
    • Terrified at this uproar, […] she ran for shelter into the place which was pre-occupied by the other lady […].1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

Questions about preoccupies

What is preoccupies the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Preoccupies is the third-person singular simple present indicative of preoccupy.

Words near preoccupies in the dictionary

  1. preoccupied names
  2. preoccupiedly
  3. preoccupiedness
  4. preoccupier
  5. preoccupiers
  6. preoccupies
  7. preoccupy
  8. preoccupying
  9. preoccurrence
  10. preoccurrences
  11. preoceanic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preoccupies (page history and authors); preoccupy (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: “preoccupies.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/preoccupies. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.