prying
prying Lexical Profile
prying Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Excessively or offensively curious about other people's private affairs; meddlesome.
"They installed tall privacy hedges around the backyard to keep out the prying eyes of the neighbors."
• noun
The act or habit of inquiring closely and intrusively into someone else's private business.
"She grew tired of her roommate's constant prying into her personal correspondence."
The action of raising, moving, or forcing something open using leverage.
"Marks on the doorframe indicated that the lock had been broken by forceful prying with a crowbar."
• Rhymes for prying
Word Origin & Etymology
Formed from the verb 'pry' plus the participial suffix '-ing'. In the sense of peering or inquiring closely, 'pry' arose in Middle English ('prien'), while the mechanical sense of levering open developed later in the 19th century as a back-formation from 'prize' (to force open).