Pry vs Lurk - What's the difference?
pry | lurk |
To look where one is not welcome; to be nosey.
To look closely and curiously at.
* Shakespeare
The act of prying
An excessively inquisitive person
A lever.
Leverage.
To use leverage to open or widen. (See also prise and prize.)
To remain concealed in order to ambush.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= To remain unobserved.
* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4
To hang out or wait around a location, preferably without drawing attention to oneself.
* 2005 , (Plato), Sophist . Translation by Lesley Brown. .
(Internet) To view an internet forum without posting comments.
The act of lurking.
* 1921 : George Colby Borley, The Lost Horizon
* 1955 : John Maxwell Edmonds Longus, Daphnis et Chloe
* 2004 : Charles Reade, A Simpleton
As an adverb pry
is allegedly.As a verb lurk is
to remain concealed in order to ambush.As a noun lurk is
the act of lurking.pry
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) pryen, . More at (l).Verb
(en-verb)- Watch thou and wake when others be asleep, / To pry into the secrets of the state.
Noun
Etymology 2
1800, ("lever"), construed as a plural noun or as a 3rd person singular verb.Noun
(pries)Verb
(en-verb)lurk
English
Verb
(en verb)Travels and travails, passage=Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.}}
- Thus my plight was evil indeed, for I had nothing now to burn to give me light, and knew that 'twas no use setting to grout till I could see to go about it. Moreover, the darkness was of that black kind that is never found beneath the open sky, no, not even on the darkest night, but lurks in close and covered places and strains the eyes in trying to see into it.
- if we find the sophist lurking , we must round him up by royal command of the argument
Derived terms
* lurkerNoun
(en noun)- There were enemies on the lurk and time was against him.
- ... barked furiously and made at him as at a wolf, and before he could wholly rise from the lurk because of the sudden consternation, ...
- At two PM a man had called on him, and had produced one of his advertisements, and had asked him if that was all square—no bobbies on the lurk .