Preoccupied

Definition: Preoccupied

Preoccupied

Adjective

1. Deeply absorbed in thought; "as distant and bemused as a professor listening to the prattling of his freshman class"; "lost in thought"; "a preoccupied frown".

2. Having or showing excessive or compulsive concern with something; "became more and more haunted by the stupid riddle"; "was absolutely obsessed with the girl"; "got no help from his wife who was preoccupied with the children"; "he was taken up in worry for the old woman".

Date "preoccupied" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1550. (references)

Synonyms: Preoccupied

Synonyms: bemused (adj), deep in thought(p) (adj), haunted (adj), lost(p) (adj), obsessed (adj), taken up(p) (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Attention	Adjective: attentive, mindful, observant, regardful; alive to, awake to; observing; Verb: alert, open-eyed; intent on, taken up with, occupied with, engaged in; engrossed in, wrapped in, absorbed, rapt, transfixed, riveted, mesmerized, hypnotized; glued to (the TV); breathless; preoccupied; (inattentive); watchful; (careful); breathless, undistracted, upon the stretch; on the watch; (expectant).
Inattention	Absent, abstracted, distrait; absentminded, lost; lost in thought, wrapped in thought; rapt, in the clouds, bemused; dreaming on other things, musing on other things; preoccupied, engrossed; (attentive); daydreaming, in a reverie; Noun: off one's guard; (inexpectant); napping; dreamy; caught napping.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Preoccupied

English words defined with "preoccupied": absently, Absent-minded, absentmindedly, absorption, abstractedly, adoring ♦ bemused, betting ♦ card-playing, clock watcher, crazy ♦ deep in thought, dissipated, doctrinal, doting ♦ engrossment ♦ fond, Forepossessed ♦ gambling ♦ haunted ♦ inattentively, introvert ♦ lascivious, lewd, libidinous, lost, lustful ♦ obsess, obsessed ♦ preoccupancy, preoccupation, prepossess ♦ sporting ♦ taken up. (references)

Specialty definitions using "preoccupied": monarch. (references)

Domain

Usage

Screenplays

Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. (Jurassic Park; writing credit: Michael Crichton)

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. (Jurassic Park; writing credit: Michael Crichton and David Koepp.)

Nowadays, people are preoccupied with reality. (Lillie; writing credit: James Brough; David Butler)

I was a bit preoccupied with its headsor maybe you didn't notice? (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; writing credit: Steven Kloves)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Celebrate Life: Hope for a Culture Preoccupied With Death (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Title	Author	Quote
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	When many diverse sensations have disturbed the day, when the mind is preoccupied, we can fall asleep once, but not a second time.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Children with AS tend to be "in their own world" and preoccupied with their own agenda. (references)
		This is common among older adults who are preoccupied with having a daily bowel movement. (references)
Economic History	Hungary	Preoccupied with the Suez Crisis, the UN and the West failed to respond, and the Soviet Union launched a massive military attack on Hungary on November 3. Some 200,000 Hungarians fled to the West. (references)
	China	Science and technology have always preoccupied Chinas leaders; indeed, China's leading technocrats--both Jiang and Zhu were trained as electric power engineers--have a great reverence for science. (references)
Lexicography	Devil's Dictionary	MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. In Russia and the Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs and in the disposition of the human head, but in western Europe political administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Speaker	Phrase(s)
Queen Noor al-Hussein of Jordan	The response has been very gratifying, as I said. But I have been so preoccupied about the situation in the Middle East that I haven't been able to be quite as excited as many around me.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

"Preoccupied" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 80.52% of the time. "Preoccupied" is used about 421 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
Adjective (general or positive)	80.52%	339	15,555
Lexical Verb (past participle)	15.68%	66	41,290
Lexical Verb (past tense)	3.8%	16	87,710
Total	100.00%	421	N/A

Expression using "preoccupied": preoccupied with. Additional references.
Hypenated Usage
	Ending with "preoccupied": over-preoccupied, self-preoccupied.
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.

Language		Translations for "preoccupied"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		mendjengritur, i zënë që përpara, i shqetësuar (agitated, anxious, apprehensive, concerned, distempered, distraught, distressed, disturbed, fidgety, flurried, flustered, jittery, restless, troubled, troublous, uneasy, vexed, worried), i merakosur (anxious, distraught, uneasy, worried). (various references)

Arabic		‏مشغول البال, ‏غير شاغر. (various references)

Bulgarian		разсеян (absent, absent minded, diffuse, disseminated, distrait, forgetful, moony, oblivious, rare, scatter-brained, stray, unmindful, vacant, wandering, wool gathering), замислен (abstracted, broody, contemplative, grave, immersed in thought, intended, meditative, pensive, reflective, ruminant, thoughtful, wistful), зает с грижи, зает с мисли. (various references)

Chinese		出神 (Preoccupy, Preoccupying). (various references)

Czech		roztržitý (absent, absent minded, absentminded, abstracted, distracted). (various references)

Finnish		hajamielinen (absent-minded), hajalle (absent-minded), hajalla (absent-minded). (various references)

French		préoccupé, soucieux. (various references)

German		vertieft (absorbed, consolidated, deepens, engrossed, recessed). (various references)

Greek		απησχολημένοσ, απορροφημένοσ (rapt). (various references)

Hebrew		שקוע במחשבות. (various references)

Hungarian		gondolatokba merült (frown, sunk in thoughts), belefeledkezett vmibe. (various references)

Italian		assorto (absorbed, engrossed). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		朝三暮四 (being preoccupied with immediatedifferences without realizing that there are no differences in substance), 所ではない (too preoccupied or busy to even think of ~), 気�'取られる (to be preoccupied with, to have one's attention attracted). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		き�'とられる (to be preoccupied with, to have one's attention attracted), ど�"ろではない (too preoccupied or busy to even think of ~), ちょうさ�"ぼし (being preoccupied with immediatedifferences without realizing that there are no differences in substance). (various references)

Korean		� 취하�". (various references)

Manx		goit (apprehended, captive, captured, impounded, nicked, seized, taken), boirit (agitated, bothered, concerned, confused, disturbed, edgy, embarrassed, grieved, perplexed, pestered, teased, vexed, woeful, worried). (various references)

Pig Latin		eoccupiedpray

Portuguese		preocupado (care-worn, concerned, discontented, solicitous, uneasy, worried), inquieto (agitated, anxious, bustling, disquiet, fidgety, frantic, fretful, fussy, nervous, on edge, qualmish, restive, restless, troubled, uneasy, unquiet), apreensivo (apprehensive, nervous, qualmish, solicitous, uneasy). (various references)

Romanian		preocupat (busy, engrossed, solicitous, thoughtful). (various references)

Russian		ранее захваченный, озабоченный (anxious, concerned, get teased about, worried), поглощенный мыслями. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		zaokupljen, zabrinut (anxious, concerned, solicitous, uneasy, worried, worrisome). (various references)

Spanish		preocupado (concerned, disquiet, faraway, qualmish, solicitous, troubled, worried). (various references)

Swedish		upptagen (busy, engaged, occupied, reserved). (various references)

Turkish		kafası meşgul, endişeli (anxious, apprehensive, concerned, distressed, doubting, fearful, ill at ease, obsessed, on edge, on the downbeat, overcast, perturbed, solicitous, suspenseful, uneasy, weighty, windy, worried), dalgın (absent, absent minded, abstracted, deep, distrait, dreamy, engrossed, far away, far off, faraway, glassy, lost, meditative, moony, pensive, plunged in thought, reflective, ruminant, ruminative, self-absorbed, stargazer, thoughtful, unheedful, vacant, vacuous, vague, wandering, wistful, woolgathering). (various references)

Turkmen		aladaly (troubled). (various references)

Ukrainian		зайнятий раніше, замислений (meditative, thoughtful). (various references)

Vietnamese		lo lắng (anxious, anxiously, fidgety, thoughtful, troubled, unquiet), không thảnh thơi, không rảnh rang, bận tâm. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	adstrictos, adstrictus. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Misspellings
	"Preoccupied" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: peroccupied. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "preoccupied" (pronounced prēÄ"kyupī'd)
7	-Ä" k y u p ī' d	occupied, unoccupied.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "c-c-d-e-e-i-o-p-p-r-u"
	-1 letter: reoccupied.
	-3 letters: codpiece, coppered, coppiced, occupied, occupier, pedicure, pericope, recopied, recouped.
	-4 letters: cicoree, coerced, coppice, cropped, croppie, cuppier, ecocide, epicure, percoid, pierced, precipe, precode, precoup, prepuce, proceed, produce, recoupe.
	-5 letters: cicero, coerce, copied, copier, copped, copper, couped, creped, croupe, cupped, cupper, cupric, deicer, dipper, dopier, oreide, perdie, perdue, period, pieced, piecer, pierce, poured, priced.
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.