Prey vs Purey - What's the difference?
prey | purey |
(archaic) Anything, as goods, etc., taken or got by violence; anything taken by force from an enemy in war; spoil; booty; plunder.
* Bible, Numbers xxxi. 12
That which is or may be seized by animals or birds to be devoured; hence, a person given up as a victim.
* Dryden
* Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
A living thing that is eaten by another living thing.
* Bible, Job iv. ii
* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
, title= The act of devouring other creatures; ravage.
* Shakespeare
The victim of a disease.
A marble, of the sort used in playing marbles, that is one solid color through and through.
*1957 , , 1991 LB Books edition, page 76,
*:... an unclouded blue marble (known to marble shooters, at least in the twenties, as a "purey "),...
As nouns the difference between prey and purey
is that prey is (archaic) anything, as goods, etc, taken or got by violence; anything taken by force from an enemy in war; spoil; booty; plunder while purey is a marble, of the sort used in playing marbles, that is one solid color through and through.prey
English
Noun
- And they brought the captives, and the prey , and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest.
- Already sees herself the monster's prey .
- [The helmsman] steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk
- The old lion perisheth for lack of prey .
William E. Conner
An Acoustic Arms Race, volume=101, issue=3, page=206-7, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Nonetheless, some insect prey take advantage of clutter by hiding in it. Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.}}
- Hog in sloth, fox in stealth, lion in prey .