pry

• IPA^(key): /pɹaɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪ

The verb is inherited from Middle English prien, pryen (“to look closely, peer into, pry, spy”) ,^[1] from Old English *prīwan, *prēowian (“to look narrowly, to squint at”), attested by Old English beprīwan, beprēwan (“to wink”); further etymology unknown,^[2] but probably akin to Old English *prēowot (“closing of the eyes”), attested only in combination – compare prēowthwīl (“blink or twinkling of an eye, moment”), princ (“a wink”): see prink.

The noun is derived from the verb.^[3]

pry (third-person singular simple present pries, present participle prying, simple past and past participle pried)

1. (intransitive)
   1. To peer closely and curiously, especially at something closed or not public.
      • 1599 (first performance), [Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, William Houghton], The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill. , London: Henry Rocket, , published 1603; republished Erlangen, Bavaria: Fr. Junge (Junge & Sohn), 1893, →OCLC, page 11, lines 293–294:

        [W]omen haue eagles eyes, / To prie euen to the heart, and why not you?

      • 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC, lines 158–161:

        […] to elude, thus wrapt in miſt / Of midnight vapor glide obſcure, and prie / In every Buſh and brake, where hap may finde / The Serpent ſleeping, […]

      • 1815, William Wordsworth, “Canto First”, in The White Doe of Rylstone; or The Fate of the Nortons. A Poem, London: [James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, , →OCLC, page 19:

        And choice of studious friends had he / Of Bolton's dear fraternity: / […] / [I]n their cells with him did pry / For other lore,—through strong desire / Searching the earth with chemic fire: […]

   2. (figuratively) To inquire into something that does not concern one; to be nosy; to snoop.
      • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies.  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 122, column 1:

        Watch thou, and wake when others be aſleepe, / To prie into the ſecrets of the State, […]

      • 1908, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, “Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing”, in A Room with a View, London: Edward Arnold, →OCLC, part I, page 73:

        We literary hacks are shameless creatures. I believe there's no secret of the human heart into which we wouldn't pry.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To peer at (something) closely; also, to look into (a matter, etc.) thoroughly.
   • 1850, Herman Melville, “Night and Day Gambling in a Man-of-War”, in White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers; London: Richard Bentley, published 1855, →OCLC, page 357:

     The two ship's corporals went among the sailors by the names of Leggs and Pounce; […] Bland, the master-at-arms, ravished with their dexterity in prying out offenders, used to call them his two right hands.

• pryer
• prying (noun)
• pryingly

pry (plural pries)

1. An act of prying; a close and curious look.

   Synonym: prying

   • 1817 March 3, John Keats, “ To ****”, in Poems, London: for C & J Ollier, , →OCLC; reprinted in Poems (The Noel Douglas Replicas), London: Noel Douglas, 1927, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 37:

     With those beauties, scarce discern'd, / Kept with such sweet privacy, / That they seldom meet the eye / Of the little loves that fly / Round about with eager pry.

2. A person who is very inquisitive or nosy; a busybody, a nosey parker.

   Synonym: (chiefly US) Paul Pry

• Paul Pry (predates sense 2)

The noun is probably a back-formation from prise, prize (“tool for levering, lever”), construed as the plural of pry.^[4]

The verb is either derived from the noun, or is a back-formation from prise (“to force open with a lever”), construed as pries, the third-person singular present form of pry.^[5]

pry (plural pries)

1. (East Anglia, US) A tool for levering; a crowbar, a lever.

   Synonyms: (both chiefly historical) prise, prize, prybar, pry bar

pry (third-person singular simple present pries, present participle prying, simple past and past participle pried) (transitive)

1. To use leverage to open, raise, or widen (something); to prise or prize.
   • 1850, Herman Melville, “A Dish of Dunderfunk”, in White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers; London: Richard Bentley, published 1855, →OCLC, page 158:

     "Oh! he's going home to Down East," said another; "so far eastward, you know, shippy, that they have to pry up the sun with a handspike."

2. (figuratively) Usually followed by out (of): to draw out or get (information, etc.) with effort.

• prybar, pry bar

• pyr-

• praie

From Middle English praien, from Anglo-Norman preier, from Old French proiier, from Latin precor.

• IPA^(key): /pɾiː/

pry (simple past pryet)

1. to pray

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 63