Word.ws English Dictionary

preoccupy

UK/pɹɪˈɒkjupaɪ//pɹiˈɑkjupaɪ/

preoccupy verb: to distract; to draw attention elsewhere.

preoccupy: woman in white crew neck t-shirt
Photo by Mahsa Senfi on Unsplash

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.
    • Dr. Beeching's obvious intent is that if Scottish—and similarly unprofitable English and Welsh—railways are to be maintained, it must be done by an unconcealed subsidy; he is determined that the railways shall no longer be preoccupied with—and derided for—immense deficits which include the burden...1962 October, “Talking of Trains: Passed to you, Mr. Macmillan”, in Modern Railways, page 220
  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

preoccupy meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

preoccupy in Bengali

বিভ্রান্ত করা, অন্যদিকে মনোযোগ আকর্ষণ করা, আগেভাগেই দখল করা, দখলে নেওয়া

preoccupy in Malayalam

മുമ്പായി കൈവശപ്പെടുത്തുക, നേരത്തേ ആക്രമിക്കുക, മുന്നഭിപ്രായമുണ്ടാക്കുക

preoccupy in Kannada

ಹಿಡಿದಿಡು, ಮುನ್ಪಡೆ, ಮುಳುಗಿರು, ಮೊದಲೇ ತುಂಬಿರು, ಹಿಡಿದಿರು, ಆವರಿಸಿಕೊಂಡಿರು

Synonyms of preoccupy

Forms of preoccupy

third-person singular presentpreoccupies
present participlepreoccupying
past participlepreoccupied
pastpreoccupied

Origin of preoccupy

From pre- + occupy, after Middle French preoccuper, and its source, Latin praeoccupo, praeoccupare. Doublet of preoccupate, now obsolete.

Questions about preoccupy

What does preoccupy mean?
Preoccupy means to distract; to draw attention elsewhere.
What is preoccupy in Bengali?
Preoccupy in Bengali is বিভ্রান্ত করা, অন্যদিকে মনোযোগ আকর্ষণ করা, আগেভাগেই দখল করা. See Preoccupy meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is preoccupy?
Preoccupy is a verb.
How do you pronounce preoccupy?
Preoccupy is pronounced /pɹɪˈɒkjupaɪ/ (UK).
What is the past tense of preoccupy?
The past tense of preoccupy is preoccupied.

Words near preoccupy in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preoccupy (page history and authors); preoccupy (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preoccupy (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preoccupy (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: en-us-preoccupy.ogg.

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