Talk:prey

Usage example is bad, so is definition.

Consider the following, achieved by substituting "chicken" for "rabbit" and "I" for "wolf": I ate the chicken, so the chicken is my prey. -- DCDuring TALK 22:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Mightn't "creature" serve better than "living thing" in the 3rd noun definition? Latter includes plants & fungi as prey. Khyranleander 17:39, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Plural

In what part of the world is "preys" the plural of "prey"? When I searched the web, I found some people saying that "preys" as plural was archaic, but that if you wanted to emphasise that you had multiple types of prey, you could use "preys" to mean that. Multiple types of prey-plural - a multiple of multiples.

I'd love to see some sources that use "preys" as the plural of "prey." Yes, Webster's lists "preys" as an alternative plural, but OED and MacMillan do not.

[1] Equinox ◑ 13:02, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Uncountable

What meaning(s) are uncountable? Random House Learner's Dictionary adds the label [uncountable] to countable definitions

1. an animal hunted for food, esp. by a meat-eating animal
2. a person or thing that is the victim of an enemy, disease, etc.
3. the action or habit of preying

--Backinstadiums (talk) 17:49, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Now collective: formerly also with a and plural. https://oed.com/oed2/00188370

(be linking + singular and plural): when the subject is a collective noun, the verb may be in the plural, following the usual pattern with such nouns: Its prey are other small animals. 

1.b. The collection of animals typically hunted and eaten by a predator: the acoustic location of prey by barn owls. 

--Backinstadiums (talk) 11:57, 4 June 2021 (UTC)