prying
/ˈpɹaɪ.ɪŋ/
prying noun: the act of one who pries. Also the present participle and gerund of pry.
Noun
prying (plural pryings)
- The act of one who pries.
- That it is wrongful to do a thing in that it is grubby in the way in which pryings for the sake of prurient interest are grubby, does not by itself make doing the thing an infringement of a claim.1992, Judith Jarvis Thomson, The Realm of Rights, page 280
Also used as
prying is also the present participle and gerund of pry.
Examples of prying in a sentence
- Those prying neighbours have robbed me of my sense of privacy.
- A monolithic chunk of titanium with facets for cutting, wrenching, and prying.
- Prying open the crate, you discover a carefully wrapped, handwritten copy of one of Matriarch Dilinaga's treatises.
Forms of prying
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more prying |
| superlative | most prying |
| Noun | |
| plural | pryings |
Words formed from prying
Words that rhyme with prying
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- bespying
- buying
- clying
- complying
- decrying
- defying
- denying
- descrying
- dyeing
- espying
- forbuying
- frying
- goodbyeing
- high-flying
- highing
- implying
- lyeing
- lying
- mistrying
- nighing
- outvying
- pieing
- plying
- rebuying
- redyeing
- refrying
- relying
- replying
- retrying
- retying
- scrying
- shanghaiing
- shying
- sighing
- skying
- speed flying
- spying
- stying
- supplying
- thighing
- unbuying
- uncrying
- undrying
- undyeing
- undying
- unflying
- unfrying
- unlying
Questions about prying
- What does prying mean?
- Prying means the act of one who pries.
- What part of speech is prying?
- Prying is a noun.
- How do you pronounce prying?
- Prying is pronounced /ˈpɹaɪ.ɪŋ/.
- What is the plural of prying?
- The plural of prying is pryings.
Words near prying in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: prying (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prying.wav.
Cite this entry: “prying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.