preen

These days, pastel and fluorescent birds groom, preen and bicker in enclosures behind the home.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 4, 2026

Maybe it’s happiest tucked into a cast-iron skillet, going golden and jammy while the showier types preen in their baskets.

From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2025

It might be a bank holiday in the UK, but for the designers, publicists and PAs, it'll be an extraordinarily busy day as they preen and prepare their stars to walk the grand staircase.

From BBC ● May 4, 2025

“When you have that double concentration, it really focuses you. It forces you to not lay back, becomes quite athletic. You don’t show, point, preen or strut, you do. That’s always the sweet spot.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2024

I prance from rack to rack, I preen.

From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich

Sometimes his comic instincts do pay off, as when Thor, Jane and friends crash a neo-Olympian, Vegas-ready paradise called Omnipotence City, where Crowe’s Zeus preens, prances and speaks in a hilariously awful Greek accent.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 5, 2022

He smiles and dances and points and preens, turning each field-goal attempt into a telenovela.

From New York Times ● Dec. 14, 2021

Robotnik preens, seethes, and contorts his face to spit out condescending sarcasm with all the psychology of a Saturday morning cartoon baddie.

From Slate ● Feb. 14, 2020

A given culture typically preens itself into believing that its foodways, family structure and political system are the truly logical ones.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 1, 2019

He preens on the railing, raising his beak majestically, fluffing his feathers.

From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman

He preened, he hugged, he shook hands and hobnobbed with legends and politicians.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 9, 2024

While that character, Fleur, primped and preened for an imagined camera as if on a livestream, she bragged about her “social media fluency” on an address to a “royal hiring academy.”

From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2023

He preened about how scientific experts marveled at his grasp of the complex details of virology and the way supposedly awestruck doctors asked, "How do you know so much?"

From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2020

Another activist, Joy Villa, preened in the background in a floor-length red gown emblazoned with the word “freedom.”

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 11, 2019

The lilac bushes preened at the railing, but there were no lilacs yet.

From "Sula" by Toni Morrison

Mr. Dirden speaks with a majestic orotundity that evokes a preacher carrying around an invisible pulpit, and exudes a preening pomposity and the requisite vicious abusiveness toward Lucky.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2025

He was preening for the press, warming to another of his vicious, incoherent jeremiads when his Canadian host suggested he join the others in a bit of work.

From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2025

The Dodger fans had once again let the taunting, preening Padres get under their skin.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2024

The “Oppenheimer” crowd were hardly the hardest partiers at the Vanity Fair post- Oscars party on Sunday night, but they hardly needed to be, their hardware did all the preening for them.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 11, 2024

Dimple could see her practically preening for the crowd.

From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon