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Preen

//pɹiːn// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A forked tool used by clothiers for dressing cloth.
  2. 2
    A pin. dialectal

    "She never seemed to want for siller; the house was as bright as a new preen, the yaird better delved than the manse garden; […]"

  3. 3
    A bodkin; brooch. dialectal
Verb
  1. 1
    To pin; fasten. transitive
  2. 2
    To groom; to trim or dress the feathers with the beak. ambitransitive
  3. 3
    dress or groom with elaborate care wordnet
  4. 4
    To spend time making oneself attractive and admiring one's appearance, e.g. in front of a mirror. intransitive, reflexive

    "Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson street. Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it."

  5. 5
    pride or congratulate (oneself) for an achievement wordnet
Show 6 more definitions
  1. 6
    To show off, posture, or smarm. intransitive

    "His preening self-satisfaction, chest thrown forward as he settles into a chair in his mansion..."

  2. 7
    clean with one's bill wordnet
  3. 8
    To flatter. transitive

    "In Miller's view the play is expressive of a peculiarly Renaissance vision of the harmonious marriage within the orderly society: 'its spirit derives from Elizabethan Puritanism's view of the household as an orderly place in whichc the marriage is consecrated not in the church but in the orderly procedures of domesticity ; in which obedience is required , not in order to preen the male pride of the father, but to restore order in a fallen world '"

  4. 9
    To comb; to make orderly. transitive

    "My two roommates are engineers who preen the diesels."

  5. 10
    To trim up, as trees. transitive

    "Adjusting his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, he gently preened the bush with his pruners."

  6. 11
    To improve the appearance of; groom; prettify. broadly, transitive

    "He brushed and preened the marquis, front and back. “Lucky we are, Your Grace, no gashes that I see. But the beard is in a woeful state —”"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English pren, from Old English prēon, from Proto-Germanic *preunaz (compare Icelandic prjónn (“pin, knitting-needle”), Danish pryne (“needle, eel-spear”)), of uncertain origin, but perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *brewn- (“protrusion, tip, edge”) (compare Lithuanian briaunà (“edge”), Albanian brez (“belt, girdle”)). Cognate with German Pfriem. The verb is from Middle English prenen, from pren (“a preen”), akin to German pfriemen.

Etymology 2

From Middle English pren, from Old English prēon, from Proto-Germanic *preunaz (compare Icelandic prjónn (“pin, knitting-needle”), Danish pryne (“needle, eel-spear”)), of uncertain origin, but perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *brewn- (“protrusion, tip, edge”) (compare Lithuanian briaunà (“edge”), Albanian brez (“belt, girdle”)). Cognate with German Pfriem. The verb is from Middle English prenen, from pren (“a preen”), akin to German pfriemen.

Etymology 3

Variant of prune (by influence of preen above). Attested in Chaucer (c. 1395) in the variants preyneth, prayneth, proyneth, prunyht, pruneth, from Old French proignier (“to trim the feathers with the beak”).

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