Preoccupied

adj, verb

adj, verb ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    simple past and past participle of preoccupy form-of, participle, past
Adjective
  1. 1
    Prepossessed; biased. obsolete
  2. 2
    Already occupied. archaic

    "Terrified at this uproar, which disconcerted the magician himself, she ran for shelter into the place which was preoccupied by the other lady […]."

  3. 3
    Describing a taxonomic name not available for use because it is already used for another. not-comparable

    "In 1924 J. D. Tothill revised the nearctic species in the genus Fabriciella, a name proposed by Bezzi in 1906 to replace Fabricia Rob. D. which is preoccupied."

  4. 4
    Concerned with something else; distracted; giving one's attention elsewhere.

    "I was preoccupied with a deadline at work, and I forgot his birthday."

Adjective
  1. 1
    having or showing excessive or compulsive concern with something wordnet
  2. 2
    deeply absorbed in thought wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bemusedabsentabsent-mindedabsentmindedabsorbedabsorbed in

Example

More examples

"All day, I have been strangely preoccupied with thoughts of my hometown."

Related phrases

preoccupied name

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