What does "pre-empt" mean?

a high bid that is intended to prevent the opposing players from bidding

What is a synonym for "pre-empt"?

Common synonyms include: preempt, preemptive bid.

Pre-empt

//pɹiːˈɛmpt// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
a high bid that is intended to prevent the opposing players from bidding wordnet

Verb

1
Alternative spelling of preempt. alt-of, alternative
"At the same time, NR Chief Executive Andrew Haines said: "I will not pre-empt the outcome of the investigation into this awful event, but it is clear the weather was appalling and there were floods and landslips in the area."

Synonyms

All synonyms

preempt preemptive bid

Example

More examples

"The Prime Minister said that he didn't want to pre-empt the findings of the inquiry by making any policy changes before its recommendations were handed down."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.