prey.
That which is or may be seized by animals to be devoured.
Meaning & usage
That which is or may be seized by animals to be devoured.
The deer became prey to the lion.
A person or thing given up as a victim.
A living thing, usually an animal, that is eaten by another living thing.
The rabbit was eaten by the coyote, so the rabbit is the coyote's prey.
Stranded without any weapons, we made very easy prey.
Anything, such as goods, etc., taken or got by violence; something taken by force from an enemy in war.
The act of devouring other creatures; ravage.
The victim of a disease.
He became the prey of dengue.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English preye, prei, preyȝe, borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Old French preie, one of the variants of proie, from Latin praeda. Compare predator. Doublet of prede.
To act as a predator.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English praien, prayen, preyen, partly from the noun and partly from Old French praer, preer, earlier preder, from Late Latin praedō, collateral form of Latin praedor, from praeda (“plunder, booty, loot”) + -ō (verbal suffix). Doublet of prede.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.