Other forms: prying, pries, pried, prys
Pry is to force something open by levering it — with a bar, a blade, the flat end of a screwdriver. You pry the lid off a tin of paint, pry a nail out of a floorboard, pry a stuck window open when the key is on the wrong side of it.
The small word after it does half the work: pry open, pry off, pry apart, pry loose. British English prefers prise for this, so prying a crate open with a crowbar sounds American to some ears. The other pry has nothing to do with tools: to pry is to poke into someone's private business — reporters prying into a family's grief, a neighbour who pries. That one takes INTO, and it gives you prying eyes, the ones you close the curtains against. Both senses share one idea: getting at something that was meant to stay shut.
The pry that means to snoop is inherited from Middle English prien, 'to look closely, peer into, pry, spy', and behind that an Old English prīwan, 'to look narrowly, to squint at'. The same Old English stock gives beprēwan, 'to wink', and prēowthwīl, the blink or twinkling of an eye. So the word started in the eyelids: a narrowed, sideways look at what was not yours to see.
Old English
*prīwan
Middle English
prien
English, today
pry
Built from
The verb is inherited from Middle English prien, pryen (“to look closely, peer into, pry, spy”)preien, preye, pri, prie, prihe, prye, pryhe, 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Tools & DIY, Hitting & Pushing, Manners & Etiquette