prone
/pɹəʊn/US/pɹoʊn/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
prone adjective: lying face-down.
Adjective
prone (comparative proner or more prone, superlative pronest or most prone)
- Lying face-down.
- prone position
- But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
- Antonyms:
- supine
- Of the hand, forearm or foot: turned facing away from the body; with the thumb inward or big toe downward.
- The hand is in the prone position typically when using a keyboard; and the forearm is then also in the prone position; when the foot is resting on the inner side of the sole, it is in the prone position.
- Synonyms:
- pronated
- Having a downward inclination or slope.
- Shooting from a position while lying down.
- Predisposed, liable, inclined, given (to something) (most often, specifically to being befallen by an unsought bad outcome, rather than to undertaking a willful behavior or to having a happy accident).
- prone to failure
- Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted; / Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, / Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited / To any sensual feast with thee alone: […]1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 141”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC
Verb
prone (third-person singular simple present prones, present participle proning, simple past and past participle proned)
- To place in a prone position, to place face down.
Proper noun capitalized: Prone
Prone
- Alternative form of Prome (“the city of Pyay”).
prone meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Odia
prone in Hindi
- प्रवण
prone in Marathi
- प्रवण
prone in Bengali
- প্রবণ
prone in Odia
- ପ୍ରବଣ
More languagesFewer languages
- prone in Nepali
- प्रवण
- prone in Indonesian
- rentan, berisiko
- prone in Vietnamese
- úp, sấp
Examples of prone in a sentence
- Men are naturally exceeding prone to deceive themselves in the opinion they have of themselves.
- Are people who report recovered memories more prone to developing false memories?
- The senator was prone to diatribes which could go on for more than an hour.
Synonyms of prone
Antonyms
Forms of prone
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | proner |
| comparative | more prone |
| superlative | pronest |
| superlative | most prone |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | prones |
| present participle | proning |
| past participle | proned |
| past | proned |
Origin of prone
From Middle English prone, proone, proon, from Latin prōnus (“turned forward, bent or inclined”), from prō (“forward”).
Words formed from prone
Phrases with prone
Words that rhyme with prone
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- moan
- throne
- atone
- clone
- crone
- depone
- hone
- loan
- cologne
- condone
- disenthrone
- disown
- eau de cologne
- enthrone
- groan
- intone
- roan
- Sloan
- Sloane
- thrown
- unknown
- bemoan
- cobblestone
- Copplestone
- grown
- joan
- known
- none
- overgrown
- pension
- phone
- postpone
- redstone
- sone
- Stallone
- answer phone
- arthron
- beknown
- cauterizing stone
- compone
- crosne
- crown
- cuboidal bone
- cuttlefish bone
- Ediphone
- enzone
- flown
- Four Shire Stone
Questions about prone
- What does prone mean?
- Prone means lying face-down.
- What is prone in Hindi?
- Prone in Hindi is प्रवण. See Prone meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is prone?
- Prone can be an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce prone?
- Prone is pronounced /pɹəʊn/ (UK).
Words near prone in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: prone (page history and authors); Prone (page history and authors); prone (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); prone (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); prone (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); prone (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); prone (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prone.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-prone.wav.
Cite this entry: “prone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.