See preoccupy in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"text": "The father tried to preoccupy the child with his keys.",
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"ref": "1962 October, “Talking of Trains: Passed to you, Mr. Macmillan”, in Modern Railways, page 220:",
"text": "Dr. Beeching's obvious intent is that if Scottish—and similarly unprofitable English and Welsh—railways are to be maintained, it must be done by an unconcealed subsidy; he is determined that the railways shall no longer be preoccupied with—and derided for—immense deficits which include the burden of social services the State must openly underwrite, if it wants them.",
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"To distract; to draw attention elsewhere."
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"(transitive) To distract; to draw attention elsewhere."
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"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "76 20 4",
"code": "bg",
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"roman": "razsejvam",
"sense": "distract",
"word": "разсейвам"
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{
"_dis1": "76 20 4",
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"sense": "distract",
"word": "siirtää jonkun huomio johonkin"
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"_dis1": "76 20 4",
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"sense": "distract",
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"_dis1": "76 20 4",
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"word": "askarruttaa"
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{
"_dis1": "76 20 4",
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"roman": "apascholó",
"sense": "distract",
"word": "απασχολώ"
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"text": "It always preoccupies me when he acts like this.",
"type": "example"
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"To worry or concern (someone) so as to distract them."
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"(transitive) To worry or concern (someone) so as to distract them."
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"ref": "1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:",
"text": "Terrified at this uproar, […] she ran for shelter into the place which was pre-occupied by the other lady […].",
"type": "quote"
}
],
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"To occupy or take possession of beforehand."
],
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"(transitive, obsolete) To occupy or take possession of beforehand."
],
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"ref": "1962 October, “Talking of Trains: Passed to you, Mr. Macmillan”, in Modern Railways, page 220:",
"text": "Dr. Beeching's obvious intent is that if Scottish—and similarly unprofitable English and Welsh—railways are to be maintained, it must be done by an unconcealed subsidy; he is determined that the railways shall no longer be preoccupied with—and derided for—immense deficits which include the burden of social services the State must openly underwrite, if it wants them.",
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"To distract; to draw attention elsewhere."
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"(transitive) To distract; to draw attention elsewhere."
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"To worry or concern (someone) so as to distract them."
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"(transitive) To worry or concern (someone) so as to distract them."
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"text": "Terrified at this uproar, […] she ran for shelter into the place which was pre-occupied by the other lady […].",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To occupy or take possession of beforehand."
],
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"(transitive, obsolete) To occupy or take possession of beforehand."
],
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"translations": [
{
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "razsejvam",
"sense": "distract",
"word": "разсейвам"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "distract",
"word": "siirtää jonkun huomio johonkin"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "distract",
"word": "kiinnittää jonkun huomio johonkin"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "distract",
"word": "askarruttaa"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "apascholó",
"sense": "distract",
"word": "απασχολώ"
}
],
"word": "preoccupy"
}
Download raw JSONL data for preoccupy meaning in English (4.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-21 using wiktextract (fef8596 and 633533e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.