Crossword clues for preoccupy
preoccupy
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Preoccupy \Pre*oc"cu*py\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Preoccupied (-p[=i]d); p. pr. & vb. n. Preoccupying.] [Cf. F. pr['e]occuper. See Preoccupate, Occupy.]
To take possession of before another; as, to preoccupy a country not before held.
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To prepossess; to engage, occupy, or engross the attention of, beforehand; hence, to prejudice.
I Think it more respectful to the reader to leave something to reflections than to preoccupy his judgment.
--Arbuthnot.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
vb. To distract; to occupy or draw attention elsewhere.
WordNet
v. engage or engross the interest or attention of beforehand or occupy urgently or obsessively; "His work preoccupies him"; "The matter preoccupies her completley--she cannot think of anything else"
occupy or take possession of beforehand or before another or appropriate for use in advance; "the army preoccupied the hills"
[also: preoccupied]
Usage examples of "preoccupy".
Mandarin, and only had enough Spanish to follow soccer broadcasts when the Anglophone nets were preoccupied with baseball or hockey, but he thought he could get by long enough to land a job.
Instead, Eli Strone was deeply preoccupied at a pulsed-laser bacterial sorter, a processing sieve that separated out desirable species from the unwanted ones.
Now, just toward the 20th of February, the oscillations of the barometrical column began to preoccupy the young novice, who noted them several times a day with much care.
Vivian was probably sorry as well, for she had a slightly confused and preoccupied look--a look from which, even in the midst of his chagrin, Bernard extracted some entertainment.
He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he almost walked past Sophy Bisset, who hailed him enthusiastically.
Both Digby and I were preoccupied and did not converse much, yet there was a kind of harmony in our silence, and I had felt the faintest inkling of a distaste for Britten Street and a recognition that honourable behaviour does impress one and convince one of its validity.
Climbing into a low-growing bush, Baal Burra would become preoccupied, innocently absorbed in an inspection of the young shoots and tender leaves which it seemed to caress.
Though Livia and Manion Butler had lived separate lives for many years, each preoccupied with their own passions, the two of them had shared an invisible bond.
Only the multipartite creature, evidently known as a Sturr, seemed more or less preoccupied with the meal before it, but that may have been either because he or she was utterly nonhumanoid, or because approximately half of the creature was seated and eating while the balance of its body parts had crawled over to the buffet table to obtain more food and drink.
Had he not been so preoccupied, the sound of Pili Parang using the VHF radio might have struck him as odd.
She knew he was preoccupied with the upcoming Playoffs, so she had given him a wide berth.
Now the soul of politeness, she glanced at Poteen, who seemed strangely preoccupied.
With the memory of past feuds and hatreds in his mind, and predisposed against any Vaufontaine, his greeting was courteously disdainful, his manner preoccupied.
As suggested by Maslow, these procrastinators may be addicted to people or preoccupied with meeting their more basic emotional needs, e.
But Schizzy and the other women employees kept themselves untouchable, even those few girls who, unlike Schizzy, did not walk about befogged in an aura of preoccupied frigidity.