Other forms: prowling, prowled, prowls
To prowl is to move about quietly, hunting or watching. Prowl the streets, a prowling cat, on the prowl.
The movement is slow and deliberate with intent behind it, which is why it suits predators and makes any human it describes sound threatening. On the prowl means actively looking for something — trouble, a bargain, company. Note prowler, which in police language means somebody loitering with intent around houses; and that the word's origin is genuinely unknown.
1verbprowlTo move about quietly, hunting or watching.
“Security guards prowled the empty building all night with torches.”
2nounmovementSuch a movement, in the phrase on the prowl.
“A fox was on the prowl near the henhouse last night.”
prowl is a stealthy moving.
Middle English prollen appears in the fourteenth century with no known source. It is one of a small number of ordinary English verbs whose history simply cannot be traced.
Middle English
prollen
English, today
prowl
From Middle English prollen, of unknown origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Ways of Moving