PREY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Prey

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noun

Prey n.

Anything, as goods, etc., taken or got by violence; anything taken by force from an enemy in war; spoil; booty; plunder. "And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest."

That which is or may be seized by animals or birds to be devoured; hence, a person given up as a victim. "The old lion perisheth for lack of prey." "Already sees herself the monster's prey."

The act of devouring other creatures; ravage. "Hog in sloth, fox in stealth,... lion in prey."

Beast of prey, a carnivorous animal; one that feeds on the flesh of other animals.

verb

Prey v. i. (past & past part. preyed; pres. part. preying) To take booty; to gather spoil; to ravage; to take food by violence. "More pity that the eagle should be mewed, While kites and buzzards prey at liberty."

To prey on or To prey upon.

(a)

To take prey from; to despoil; to pillage; to rob.

(b)

To seize as prey; to take for food by violence; to seize and devour.

(c)

To wear away gradually; to cause to waste or pine away; as, the trouble preyed upon his mind.

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Etymology of 'Prey'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Prey" Quotes from Famous Books

... antecedently. In other words: it was probable that there should exist geological evidences of suffering and death: that the gigantic ichthyosaurus should be found fixed in rock with his cruel jaws closed upon his prey: that the fearful iguanodon should leave the tracks of having desolated a whole region of its reptile tribes: that volcanoes should have ravaged fair continents prolific of animal and vegetable life: that, in fine, though man's ...

— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... almost a human quality in it. Restrained by the walls of stone from being destructive, it seems to rave at its own impotence, and when it reaches the whirlpool it is like a hungry animal, returning and licking the shore for the prey it has missed. But it has not always wanted a prey. Now and again it has a wreck or a dead body to toss and fling about. Although it does not need the human element of disaster to make this canon grewsome, the keepers of the show places make the most of the late Captain ...

— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... could in all Probability be the Issue of bringing such Matters to bear, but the throwing ourselves and all Europe into a Flame? ruining our Credit, destroying our Trade, beggaring of private Families, setting us a cutting one another's Throats; by which we should become an easy Prey to the common Enemy, who would at once subvert our Constitution, the happiest, the best in the World; destroy our Church Establishment; and subject us to all the Cruelty and Sufferings the unbounded Lust of Tyrants, and the ...

— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous

... could buy it if you'd hold this baby till I put my hand in my pocket.' The youth laughed, but for the sake of 'making a trade' set down his basket and took the 'enfant terrible.' There was an instant attack upon his hair, which was so long and straggling as to prove an easy prey ...

— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May

... Jimmie Higgins had no acquaintance with the poets, and so it was a brand new thing to him, he was left to experience the shock of it and to resolve the problems of it all alone. To be rolled and tossed about like a man in a blanket at a college ragging! To be a prey to bewilderment and fear, hope and longing, despair and rebellion, delicious excitement, angry self-contempt and tormenting doubt! Truly did that poet divine who first conceived the symbol of the mischievous little god, who steals ...

— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

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