How to Use preoccupy in a Sentence

preoccupy

verb

• The question of life after death has preoccupied many philosophers.
• The moves reflected the mood of a market that seems just as preoccupied with the virus as the rest of the world.
  — Alex Veiga, Fortune, 10 Mar. 2020
• Both artists were preoccupied with the abject side of the human body — the body as meat.
  — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 31 July 2019
• The weak state of our railways has long since preoccupied me.
  — Carolyn Harris, Smithsonian, 17 Feb. 2017
• The weak state of our railways has long since preoccupied me.
  — Carolyn Harris, Smithsonian, 17 Feb. 2017
• Putin is preoccupied with raising the birth rate at any cost, but there are few signs this can be changed.
  — Andrei Kolesnikov, Foreign Affairs, 7 Mar. 2024
• Some are preoccupied with concern for the lives and safety of loved ones.
  — Carine Harb, Newsweek, 10 Dec. 2024
• The man grunts, preoccupied with the survival of his business.
  — Hazlitt, 13 May 2025
• The certainty of the Nazis’ threat is what preoccupied Churchill.
  — Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ, 20 July 2017
• But House members will still be preoccupied with the Biden probe.
  — Eric Cortellessa, TIME, 22 Feb. 2024
• If a staffer is preoccupied with fear, imagine all the work not being done.
  — Bonnie Low-Kramen, Quartz, 14 Mar. 2023
• The character—and the series—was preoccupied with the notion of true love.
  — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 11 Dec. 2023
• Tension over the bill preoccupied the Senate over two days last month.
  — David Ovalle, Anchorage Daily News, 6 Apr. 2023
• Melvin shook free from him later in the game, but Nelson was also preoccupied with the tight end.
  — Jeff McLane, Philly.com, 20 Mar. 2018
• Yet the stories that preoccupy Holes are hard for others to hear.
  — Washington Post, 27 Apr. 2022
• Early in the game, a teammate noticed Gostkowski was still preoccupied with the way the wind might affect the ball.
  — Kalyn Kahler, The MMQB, 12 July 2017
• For now, Russia, preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, has very few troops along the frontier, and the Finns insist that none of this is much of a threat — yet.
  — Johanna Lemola, New York Times, 19 May 2025
• But not the kind of exit that has preoccupied the country, and Europe, in so many seasons past.
  — Washington Post, 8 Mar. 2018
• The project that would preoccupy the Grimms for the remainder of their lives was the Deutsches Wörterbuch—the German dictionary.
  — Jennifer Wilson, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2024
• The two also sing, bringing fresh life into a film so preoccupied with the past.
  — Peter Debruge, Variety, 5 Sep. 2024
• The teenage carnie who has been preoccupied with his phone the phone finally looks up at his booth to discover that all the toys are gone.
  — Eliana Dockterman, Time, 21 June 2019
• What else could a good or viable life be preoccupied with?
  — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 21 June 2023
• Their office is also not the type of place where employees are preoccupied with who is the first in the office or the last out at the end of the day either.
  — Kate Storey, Marie Claire, 27 Mar. 2016
• The Cavs also screen on the baseline or high post off the ball and slide shooters behind them with the defense preoccupied with James.
  — J. Michael, Indianapolis Star, 14 Apr. 2018
• This mood is at odds with the behaviour of the family at the centre of the film who are preoccupied with building a dream life.
  — Hazlitt, 6 Mar. 2024
• The source of that light, lying on the other side of the visible world, is what preoccupies Murnane.
  — Ryu Spaeth, The New Republic, 4 May 2018
• Switching homes, getting kids back to school and the revving up of the fall work schedule will most likely make your hosts preoccupied.
  — Marcy Blum, ELLE Decor, 4 Sep. 2015
• During the two years before Hamas’s act of mass murder, the world of arms transfers had been preoccupied with weapons for Ukraine.
  — Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker, 6 Nov. 2023
• The polls are tightening in part because Trump has been preoccupied.
  — Sean Collins, Vox, 28 Apr. 2025
• Patty Hirota-Cohen, in her seventies, has been preoccupied with osteopenia for at least 15 years.
  — Jia H. Jung, Mercury News, 4 June 2025