Word.ws English Dictionary

preying

preying is the present participle and gerund of prey.

Meaning of prey

Verb

prey (third-person singular simple present preys, present participle preying, simple past and past participle preyed)

  1. (intransitive) To act as a predator.
    • The ridge had been a haven for birds and small earth creatures, creeping, crawling, and hopping in a little world of balanced ecology where wild things preyed and were preyed upon […]2001, Karen Harden McCracken, The Life History of a Texas Birdwatcher, page 278

See all 7 meanings of prey

Phrases with preying

Questions about preying

What is preying the present participle and gerund of?
Preying is the present participle and gerund of prey.

Words near preying in the dictionary

  1. preyed upon
  2. preyer
  3. preyers
  4. preyeth
  5. preyful
  6. preying
  7. preying mantis
  8. preying on
  9. preying upon
  10. preys
  11. preys on

Source and license

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