[
UK
/pɹɪˈɒkjʊpˌaɪd/
]
[ US /pɹiˈɑkjəˌpaɪd/ ]
[ US /pɹiˈɑkjəˌpaɪd/ ]
ADJECTIVE
-
having or showing excessive or compulsive concern with something
was absolutely obsessed with the girl
became more and more haunted by the stupid riddle
he was taken up in worry for the old woman
got no help from his wife who was preoccupied with the children -
deeply absorbed in thought
as distant and bemused as a professor listening to the prattling of his freshman class
lost in thought
a preoccupied frown
How To Use preoccupied In A Sentence
- Dylan seemed exhausted, self-preoccupied, and morbidly depressed. Touched with Fire
- In Japan, he sees political parties solely occupied in securing power and preoccupied in increasing strength and influence.
- The work of the Hard-Edge painters, their first collective exhibition catalog in 1959 asserted, runs counter to a widespread contemporary belief in the primary value of emotion and intuition in esthetic experience … the [Hard-Edge painter] is not preoccupied with art as an opportunity to make autobiographical statements. California Cool
- Hamlet as a play is similarly preoccupied by slander, misrepresentation and selves fabricated from the nothings of rhetorical tropes.
- Not surprisingly, the strikers were preoccupied with regaining their jobs and keeping their system of seniority.
- This is the story that has preoccupied at least two nations and elicited sympathy around the world. Times, Sunday Times
- Humans are also preoccupied by fantasy & fiction of all types, even especially? knowing that it is *fiction*, we do not have to hypothesize a platonic realm to explain that... Free Will and Behavioral Genetics, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
- In the second stage, the individual becomes preoccupied with this problem and withdraws from active social life. Sociology and Religion: A Collection of Readings
- But it also takes a huge toll on their businesses, which suffer when employees are preoccupied by something other than their work. Times, Sunday Times
- Too often, the most famous members of the profession become preoccupied by their own personalities, generating flashy images and huckstering iconic trademarks.