Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Prying |
PryingAdjective1. Offensively curious or inquisitive; "curious about the neighbor's doings"; "he flipped through my letters in his nosy way"; "prying eyes"; "the snoopy neighbor watched us all day". Noun1. Offensive inquisitiveness. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "prying" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references) |
Synonyms: PryingSynonyms: nosey (adj), nosy (adj), snoopy (adj), nosiness (n), snoopiness (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Curiosity | Adjective: curious, inquisitive, burning with curiosity, overcurious; inquiring; prying, snoopy, nosy, peering; prurient; inquisitorial, inquisitory; curious as a cat; agape; (expectant). |
Inquiry | Reconnoitering, reconnaissance; prying; Verb: espionage, espionnage; domiciliary visit, peep behind the curtain; lantern of Diogenes. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Prying |
| English words defined with "prying": Curious arts ♦ Emissitious ♦ Inspecttion ♦ Mousing ♦ pryingly ♦ ripping chisel. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "prying": barring down, barring scrap, BASEBALL INSPECTOR AND REPAIRER, BOILERMAKER HELPER I ♦ DRIER OPERATOR, drum operator ♦ Eavesdrop ♦ FISH-STRINGER ASSEMBLER ♦ hardware assembler ♦ knockout man ♦ machine-operator helper ♦ O'pal ♦ PLASTIC TOOL MAKER, PRESS PULLER ♦ rewinder, rewinder-operator helper ♦ slitter helper, slitter-and-rewinder, SLITTING-MACHINE-OPERATOR HELPER I. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I wish you'd stop prying and trying to find things out. I wish you were dead - no, I don't mean that (Brief Encounter; writing credit: David Lean, written by Noel Coward, Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, and Ronald Neame.) First they're dating and having fun, and then the next thing you know, they're prying the money to pay for a wedding from my cold, dead hands (That '70s Show; writing credit: Stacia Raymond) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Victor Hugo | For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | Thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | For prying into any human affairs, none are equal to those whom it does not concern |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | EAVESDROP, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself. A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free -- The subject engaging them was she. "I think," said one, "and my husband thinks That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" As soon as no more of it she could hear The lady, indignant, removed her ear. "I will not stay," she said, with a pout, "To hear my character lied about!" Gopete Sherany |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Prying" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 71.79% of the time. "Prying" is used about 78 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 71.79% | 56 | 45,296 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 20.51% | 16 | 87,710 |
| Noun (singular) | 5.13% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Noun (proper) | 2.56% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 78 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "prying": frost prying. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
prying eyes | 3 |
eye open prying third | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "prying"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | فضولي (busy, busybody, curious, inquisitive, intrusive, meddlesome, nosy, obtrusive, officious), المتطفل (intruder, meddler, sponge). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | любопитен (curious, inquisitive, intriguing). (various references) | |
Chinese | '起 (Levering, Pried). (various references) | |
Danish | frostsprængning (congelifraction, frost blasting, frost bursting, frost prying, frost rending, frost riving, frost shattering, frost splitting, frost weathering, frost wedging, gelifraction, gelivation). (various references) | |
Dutch | vorstverwering (congelifraction, frost blasting, frost bursting, frost prying, frost rending, frost riving, frost shattering, frost splitting, frost weathering, frost wedging, gelifraction, gelivation). (various references) | |
Finnish | pakkasrapautuminen (congelifraction, frost blasting, frost bursting, frost prying, frost rending, frost riving, frost shattering, frost splitting, frost weathering, frost wedging, gelifraction, gelivation). (various references) | |
French | indiscret, fureteur, fouineur. (various references) | |
German | neugierig (agog, curious, inquisitive, inquisitively, inquisitorial, longing to know, nosey, nosily, nosy, pryingly, snoopy). (various references) | |
Greek | μόχλευση (leverage, lifting, prize). (various references) | |
Hebrew | סקר י (curious, inquisitive). (various references) | |
Hungarian | kíváncsiskodó (nosy, pry). (various references) | |
Indonesian | mengintai (leer, leering, lying in wait for, pry). (various references) | |
Italian | indiscreto (curious, indiscreet, maladroit, nosey, nosy, officious, personal, tactless, telltale). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 穿鑿 (digging into, excavation, inquiry into, scrutiny). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | せ"さく (digging into, excavation, inquiry into, investigation, scrutiny, turning). (various references) | |
Korean | 지 로 "어올림. (various references) | |
Manx | steetagh (knavish, peep, peeping, sneaking), speeikey (descry, descrying, peep, peeping, pry, spy), skeetagh (inquisitive, nosey, sneaking), sheegerey (pry, spy), sheegeraght (peeping), sheegeragh (listen in, spy), peeikearys (espionage, inquisitiveness, peeping), peeikearagh (curiosity, descrying, nosey, peep, peeping, pry, pryer, view, view from concealment, watch). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | yingpray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | gelivação (congelifraction, frost blasting, frost bursting, frost prying, frost rending, frost riving, frost shattering, frost splitting, frost weathering, frost wedging, gelifraction, gelivation). (various references) | |
Romanian | curios (agog, curiosity-monger, curious, inquisitive, meddler, odd, particular, paul pry, peculiar, queer, quidnunc, rare, rum, strange, uncommon), bãgãcios (busy body, kibitzer, meddler, meddlesome, nosy, obtrusive, officious). (various references) | |
Russian | пытливый (inquisitive, inquisitorial). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | ljubopitljiv (curious, inquisitive), ispitujući (inquiring, inquiringly). (various references) | |
Spanish | entrometido (busybody, interfering, interloper, meddler, meddlesome, meddling, obtrusive, pragmatic, pragmatical). (various references) | |
Swedish | frostvittring (congelifraction, frost blasting, frost bursting, frost prying, frost rending, frost riving, frost shattering, frost splitting, frost weathering, frost wedging, gelifraction, gelivation). (various references) | |
Turkish | meraklı (addict, addicted, aficionado, amateur, buff, bug, curious, curious person, devotee, fancier, freak, given to, hipped, hipped on, hound, inquiring, inquisitive, inquisitorial, interested, keen, keen on, lover, nosey, nosy, quidnunc, quizzical, rubberneck, snoop, Snoopy, splenetic), merakla bakan. (various references) | |
Turkmen | bilesigeliji (curious). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | допитливий (curious, inquiring, inquisitive, investigative, investigatory, pry, searching). (various references) | |
Welsh | chwilgi (busybody, prying dog). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "prying": pryingly. (additional references) | |
| |
"Prying" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Porybny, pring, Pringi, pryne, pyong. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "prying" (pronounced prī"ing) |
| 4 | -r ī" i ng | crying, decrying, drying, frying, retrying, semidrying, trying. |
| 3 | -ī" i ng | applying, belying, buying, complying, defying, denying, dyeing, dying, eyeing, flying, implying, indemnifying, lying, misapplying, overflying, overlying, plying, relying, replying, shying, sighing, spying, supplying, tieing, tying, underlying, undying, vying. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "g-i-n-p-r-y" | |
-1 letter: gripy. | |
-2 letters: girn, grin, grip, gyri, ping, piny, pirn, prig, pyin, ring. | |
-3 letters: gin, gip, gyp, nip, pig, pin, pry, rig, rin, rip, yin, yip. | |
-4 letters: in, pi. | |
| Words containing the letters "g-i-n-p-r-y" | |
+1 letter: praying, preying, springy. | |
+2 letters: agrypnia, parrying, partying, perigyny, pryingly, repaying, replying, retyping, spraying, updrying. | |
+3 letters: agrypnias, carpingly, cyphering, panegyric, panfrying, pargyline, parlaying, parleying, parodying, pouringly, pratingly, prepaying, prettying, pretyping, purifying, purringly, purveying, pyrogenic, raspingly, recopying, replaying, sparingly, springily, syphering, trophying. | |
+4 letters: atrophying, decrypting, droopingly, encrypting, epeirogeny, graspingly, grippingly, outpraying, overhyping, overpaying, overplying, panegyrics, panegyrist, paralysing, paralyzing, pargylines, perigynies, perigynous, petrifying, phrensying, piercingly, pigmentary, pillorying, portraying, presignify, pressingly, putrefying, pyramiding, pyrolizing, pyrolyzing, reapplying, replevying, respraying, sportingly, superlying, trippingly. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
