Word.ws English Dictionary

preoccupying

preoccupying is the present participle and gerund 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 preoccupying

What is preoccupying the present participle and gerund of?
Preoccupying is the present participle and gerund of preoccupy.

Words near preoccupying in the dictionary

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

Source and license

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