Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use preoccupation in a sentence

23 example sentences · noun

Preoccupation means the state of being preoccupied or an idea that preoccupies the mind; enthrallment. Example: “The same preoccupation with developing a conceptual framework is evident in David Blank's Venezuela: Politics in a Petroleum Republic, a modified version of Blank's early theses.”

Examples of preoccupation by meaning

nounThe state of being preoccupied or an idea that preoccupies the mind; enthrallment.

  • The same preoccupation with developing a conceptual framework is evident in David Blank's Venezuela: Politics in a Petroleum Republic, a modified version of Blank's early theses.1987, Latin American Research Review, page 238
  • But there is no contradiction between the populist right’s Christianism and its secularism, since both derive from a preoccupation with Islam.2017 December 6, Rogers Brubaker, “The New Language of European Populism”, in brubaker.scholar.ss.ucla.edu, page 4
  • In a way, I’ve turned my youthful preoccupations into a profession.2020 April, Elizabeth Kolbert, “Why we won't avoid a climate catastrophe”, in National Geographic

More sentences with preoccupation

  • The issue has become a preoccupation across the political spectrum.2026 July 11, Hannah Devlin, “‘Spermageddon’: is the world facing a male reproductive crisis?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry spermageddon
  • The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people.2014 January 7, Katie McDonough, quoting Laverne Cox, “Laverne Cox flawlessly shuts down Katie Couric's invasive questions about…. From the entry transition
  • This preoccupation, it appears, was to challenge official constructions of blackness and to create oppositional or counterimaginations of black identity.2012, L. Modisane, South Africa's Renegade Reels, page 33. From the entry counterimagination
  • But it's also in keeping with menswear's current preoccupation with authenticity, a return to basic, hardworking and hypermasculine clothing.2009 February 26, Loretta Chin, “Canada produces fashion by buddies and brothers”, in Toronto Star. From the entry hypermasculine
  • Solving longitude was one of the major preoccupations of European nations from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries.2005, Michael R. Matthews, Colin F. Gauld, Arthur Stinner, “The Pendulum: Its Place in Science, Culture and Pedagogy”, in Michael R.…. From the entry king's ransom
  • Why the unusual preoccupation with the "Year of the Dragon"?2000 spring, Benjamin F. Schemmer, “Editorial: Pandering”, in Benjamin F. Schemmer, editor, Strategic Review, volume XXVIII, number 2…. From the entry Chinese New Year
  • This leucoderm preoccupation with getting dark must look ridiculous to a melanoderm; it certainly makes melanophobia seem odd.1970, Marston Bates, A Jungle in the House: Essays in Natural and Unnatural History, New York, N.Y.: Walker and Company, pages 191 and 193. From the entry melanophobia
  • Preoccupation with the shameful change in her body is emphasized in the numerous scopophilic and scopophobic references in these pictures.1955 November–December, Bernard C. Meyer, Fred Brown, Abraham Levine, “Observations on the House-Tree-Person Drawing Test Before and After…. From the entry scopophobic
  • The authors devote a fascinating excursus to the Western imagination’s preoccupation with serpents—from Eden to esoterica—and how this primed the ground for Kuṇḍalinī’s reception.2025 December 10, Massimo Introvigne, ““The Serpent’s Tale”: Kuṇḍalinī Without a Leash”, in Bitter Winter. From the entry excursus
  • Uncertain how to address a French preoccupation with security and immigration, and facing a generational fracture over identity politics, the left’s disarray has allowed Mr.2021 September 2, Roger Cohen, “The French Left Is in Disarray, but Here Comes Anne Hidalgo”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from…. From the entry macron
  • Taxonavigation in design and architecture, much like the contemporary preoccupation with tagging, labeling, blogging, and wikiing has become integral to praxis and pedagogy.2012, Liat Margolis, “Encoding Digital and Analogue Taxonavigation”, in Thomas Schröpfer, editor, Material Design: Informing Architecture…. From the entry taxonavigation
  • It is not difficult to see that in this preoccupation with middle-class identity, there is a common thread to all the narratives I discussed.2004, Borislav Knezevic, Figures of Finance Capitalism: Writing, Class and Capital in Mid-Victorian Narratives, Routledge, →ISBN, page 152. From the entry common thread
  • For this reason the shape of a Holocaust memorist's work may depend as much on the writer's later preoccupations as on the events themselves.2002, Thomas Riggs, Reference Guide to Holocaust Literature, page xxxii. From the entry memorist
  • The teaching here is orthodoxly Islamic, the preoccupation with assessing the relation of works to faith is very much of the European fifteenth century.1990, LP Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500, page 91. From the entry orthodoxly
  • A brittle piece of whimsy; and the author's snickering preoccupation with Scooter's condition (described ad nauseam as "mistoed,” “misfingered," and "malformed") leaves a nasty aftertaste.1989, Jim Kobak's Kirkus Reviews - Volume 57, Issue 7, page 494. From the entry misfingered
  • These preoccupations unfitted the soldiers for the defence of the frontier, and permitted vigorous incursions of Germans form the north and Persians from the east.1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.30. From the entry unfit
  • Further, one of my goals is to reintroduce questions of labour into the degrowth and environmentalist movements that exclude them in favour of preoccupations with consumerism, enlightenment and politicalism.2024, Kohei Saito, Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth. From the entry politicalism
  • The central preoccupation of the Gileadean society is human reproduction, because most members are sterile or infertile due to the build-up of toxic wastes and nuclear fallout.1999, Virginia Olessen, Revisioning Women, Health and Healing: Feminist, Cultural, and Technoscience Perspectives, page 234. From the entry Gileadean
  • Ros′s father′s main preoccupations in his nursing home were to have a box of man-sized tissues beside his bed and plenty of his favourite fruit-flavoured jubes beside the jumbo Kleenex.2008, Tim Bowden, Down Under in the Top End: Penelope Heads North, page xix. From the entry jube
  • Cicero’s preoccupation with the slander spread by the two Quinti about him at a dangerous time would in any case have led him to focus less on everyday family ructions.1988, Suzanne Dixon, “The Roman Mother and the Adolescent or Adult Son”, in The Roman Mother, Beckenham, Greater London; Sydney, N.S.W.…. From the entry quintus

Meaning of preoccupation

  1. noun The state of being preoccupied or an idea that preoccupies the mind; enthrallment.
  2. noun The act of occupying something before someone else.

Full definition of preoccupation

Questions about preoccupation in a sentence

How do you use preoccupation in a sentence?
Preoccupation is used as a noun. For example: “The same preoccupation with developing a conceptual framework is evident in David Blank's Venezuela: Politics in a Petroleum Republic, a modified version of Blank's early theses.”
What is a short sentence with preoccupation?
“The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people.”
What does preoccupation mean?
Preoccupation means the state of being preoccupied or an idea that preoccupies the mind; enthrallment.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preoccupation (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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