PRIES Synonyms: 74 Similar and Opposite Words

pries 1 of 2

verb (1)

present tense third-person singular of pry

as in pulls

to raise, move, or pull apart with or as if with a lever it took some effort to pry up the trap door

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in plucks

to draw out by force or with effort a vain attempt to pry the cork out of a wine bottle

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pries

2 of 2

verb (2)

present tense third-person singular of pry

as in interferes

to interest oneself in what is not one's concern don't go prying into other people's business

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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 pries

Verb

By fields of cotton and soybeans where his bees forage and pollinate, Foster Hensel pries open the lid of one of his beehives, setting off a rising hum from inside. — Drew Hawkins, NPR, 27 Aug. 2026 Remove the 11 Philips-head screws on the bottom of the laptop, and its bottom pries up with a bit of pressure. — ArsTechnica, 24 Aug. 2026 There are swooping close encounters with heavenly bodies, Lego blocks in antigravity mode and swarms of Separators, a sort of astro-anthropomorphic version of the tool that pries apart Lego bricks in real life. — Dewayne Bevil, The Orlando Sentinel, 24 Feb. 2026 The show’s biggest laugh may come when Testa pries open Costanzo’s mouth and pronounces just how many performances of Norma Galas has left. — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 19 Sep. 2025 Could this be the year Johannesburg pries visitors away from Cape Town with a cool new city hotel and a dynamic dining scene, or when sunseekers take another look at Mauritius instead of the Maldives? — Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 15 Nov. 2023

Recent Examples of Synonyms for pries

Verb

Carl drops onto the couch, pulls Maribeth down on top of him.

— George Saunders, New Yorker, 18 Oct. 2026
When Randle pulls a defender into the paint, Porter has room to shoot if the ball comes back out.

— C.J. Holmes, New York Daily News, 18 Oct. 2026

Definition of pulls

Verb

Trump sometimes plucks memes from a sprawling ecosystem of online conservative supporters, and sometimes his government staff produces them as part of their official messaging.

— Josh Boak, Los Angeles Times, 9 Sep. 2026
His torso and thighs grow eye-poppingly muscular beneath their skimpy fur-and-leather togs—a development that does not go unnoticed by a warrior named Red Hair, who plucks the young hunk from his post and tosses him into the prime time of the gladiator pit.

— Naomi Fry, New Yorker, 15 June 2026

Definition of plucks

Verb

If a person interferes or one step fails, the system can adjust its plan and retry rather than requiring the entire task to be restarted.

— Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 2 Oct. 2026
But as China’s 2018 detention of two Canadian citizens after Canada arrested a Huawei executive showed, the party readily interferes in the legal system when important interests are at stake.

— Mark Jia, Foreign Affairs, 7 Aug. 2026

Definition of interferes

Verb

Mildren’s latest product, the Micro Honey Harvester, is a compact, rechargeable device that extracts honey from spinning honeycomb cassettes.

— Derek Rose, Time, 15 Oct. 2026
Backed by more than 150 patents, the approach extracts lithium from mineral-rich brines and refines it into materials suitable for batteries.

— Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 13 Oct. 2026

Definition of extracts

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priers

pries

priest

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“Pries.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pries. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of pries

verb (1)

verb (2)

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