GRAPH-WIDE SEARCH
MEASURE THE GRAPH ↗NOT JUST A DICTIONARY LOOKUP
6 EVIDENCE COLLECTIONSSEARCH
THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
These are source reports, not reviewed *SET-U ancestry. A list of templates or numbered etymologies is not an ancestor chain. Scholarly disagreements remain in the original source text.
35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL4 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Pry”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
PryEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
* As an Irish surname, spelling variant of Prey, from Ó Préith, probably from na préith (“of the cattle-spoil”) (compare Latin praeda (“plunder, booty”)). * As a German surname, a spelling variant of Prey, from breu (“brew”); see brauen. Comparable to the surname Preyer.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗pryEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
The verb is inherited from Middle English prien, pryen (“to look closely, peer into, pry, spy”) [and other forms], from Old English *prīwan, *prēowian (“to look narrowly, to squint at”), attested by Old English beprīwan, beprēwan (“to wink”); further etymology unknown, but probably akin to Old English *prēowot (“closing of the eyes”), attested only in combination – compare prēowthwīl (“blink or twinkling of an eye, moment”), princ (“a wink”): see prink. The noun is derived from the verb.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗pryEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
The noun is probably a back-formation from prise, prize (“tool for levering, lever”), construed as the plural of pry. The verb is either derived from the noun, or is a back-formation from prise (“to force open with a lever”), construed as pries, the third-person singular present form of pry.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗pryEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
These are spelling matches, not a claim of identical senses or agreement. Historical accounts retain their own editions and limits; none is automatically promoted into reviewed ancestry.
Browse the independently attributed sources →Try a modern word, an attested or reconstructed form, a gloss, a language, an author, a source title, or language from a claim.
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.