preempts

verb

present tense third-person singular of preempt
as in seizes
to take or make use of under a guise of authority but without actual right the thoughtless teenagers had preempted front-row seats that were reserved for the guests of honor

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of preempts The forcefulness of their singing conveys desperation, but preempts so much of the nuance that enlivens their songs—the fundamental regret in their voice grinding against the fundamental determination. — Stephen M. Deusner, Pitchfork, 3 Nov. 2026 There is currently a split among federal courts as to whether Kalshi, Polymarket and other companies can be regulated by states’ sports betting laws or whether federal law for commodities preempts states. — Eben Novy-Williams, Sportico.com, 3 Nov. 2026 City administrators have maintained that North Carolina state law preempts local governments from mandating wage or benefit floors for private subcontractors. — Chase Jordan october 30, Charlotte Observer, 30 Oct. 2026 The key legal questions being grappled with by courts throughout the US are whether event contracts offered by prediction markets qualify as swaps, and whether the CFTC jurisdiction over swaps preempts states from applying their gambling laws. — Jon Brodkin, ArsTechnica, 29 Oct. 2026 Some have ruled that federal law preempts or blocks states and counties from suing under state law. — Los Angeles Times, 5 Oct. 2026 The court could also choose to make clear that state-law damages claims could go forward, or that federal law preempts the claims altogether. — ABC News, 5 Oct. 2026 No federal statute currently preempts state disclosure requirements, and firms advising advertisers have generally recommended continued compliance with state law while the question is litigated. — Gabriel Alin Zainescu, Forbes.com, 25 July 2026 The court held that federal pesticide law preempts a state failure-to-warn claim when the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a cancer warning on the product label. — Alex Smolak, STAT, 27 June 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for preempts
  1. seizes
  2. usurps
  3. confiscates
  4. grabs
  5. occupies
  6. claims
  7. steals
  8. appropriates
Verb
  • Now, her family must reckon with the consequences as Agnes van Rhijn seizes an opportunity to regain her position.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 5 Nov. 2026
  • Sid is smart enough to sniff this out, and the show seizes the opportunity to raise the romantic stakes through an adorably British expression of mutual libidinousness.
    — Scott Tobias, Vulture, 14 Oct. 2026
Definition of seizes
Verb
  • California courts have repeatedly refused to rewrite unconstitutional tax statutes on the grounds that this usurps the role of the Legislature or, in the case of an initiative, the people.
    — Jared Walczak, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 July 2026
  • After witnessing Sinner miss 16 break points against the same opponent on Friday, Alcaraz would have been forgiven for worrying that something similar might happen to him — especially against arguably tennis’s greatest escape artist, at least until the Spaniard usurps him.
    — Matthew Futterman, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2026
Definition of usurps
Verb
  • Arriving from Barcelona, the local landlord, however, confiscates Fagas’ America rifle, given to him by his father.
    — John Hopewell, Variety, 23 Oct. 2026
  • Large swaths of the film are composed of close-ups of people’s faces or hands, giving seemingly mundane exchanges and gestures — say, a moment when Evans, unimpressed with Holmes’s egg-whisking technique, confiscates the bowl — greater weight.
    — Alex Barasch, Vulture, 19 Oct. 2026
Definition of confiscates
Verb
  • Lithium grabs the spotlight, but cheap and abundant sodium has long held the key to large-scale energy storage.
    — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 3 Nov. 2026
  • Testing spoons stored in a manner where lip contact surface contamination could happen when employee grabs the spoon from container.
    — Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 2 Nov. 2026
Definition of grabs
Verb
  • Taylor Swift occupies the number two spot with a value of about $2 billion.
    — Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News, 9 Nov. 2026
  • Hundreds of civilians evacuated and children reunited with their families are victories worth celebrating, but Russia still occupies Ukrainian territory and the larger business of making peace remains unfinished.
    — Anna Rahmanan, MSNBC Newsweek, 8 Nov. 2026
Definition of occupies
Verb
  • Google also claims the model outperforms competing systems across benchmarks covering agent routing, reasoning, ranking and multimodal understanding, while achieving the lowest calibration error.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 11 Nov. 2026
  • All of these companies are being sued by PHI Health, a national air ambulance chain, which claims the employers are responsible for bills that health insurers haven’t fully paid, or have delayed paying.
    — Theresa Gaffney, STAT, 11 Nov. 2026
Definition of claims
Verb
  • Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo steals the ball from UConn guard Kayleigh Heckel during the second half in an Elite Eight game on March 29, 2026, in Fort Worth, Texas.
    — Doug Feinberg, Chicago Tribune, 1 Nov. 2026
  • Plus, in the end, another chain, Sizzler, swoops in and steals all the cows.
    — Payton Turkeltaub, Variety, 29 Oct. 2026
Definition of steals
Verb
  • The pair’s winding route from River’s late grandfather’s country house to Diana’s beach retreat, which Slough House head Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) cheekily appropriates as a safe house, is a winding one.
    — Alison Herman, Variety, 21 Oct. 2026
  • Tiki bars aren’t without criticism, having occasionally been attacked as escapist fantasy that appropriates Hawaiian or Polynesian iconography.
    — Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times, 31 Aug. 2026
Definition of appropriates

Browse Nearby Words

preemptions
preempts
preen
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Preempts.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/preempts. Accessed 13 Nov. 2026.

Copy Citation
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

How to Use 'Who' vs. 'Whom'

31 Useful Rhetorical Devices

More Commonly Misspelled Words

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

'Affect' vs. 'Effect'
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 5

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

The Longest Long Words List

The Words of the Week - Nov. 13

Even More Bird Names that Sound Like Insults (and Sometimes Are)
See More

Popular

See More

How to Use 'Who' vs. 'Whom'

Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 5

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
woman sitting on floor holding book in front of her face on pink background
Famous Novels, Last Lines Quiz Needless to say, spoiler alert.
See All