over-pryingadj.

1655 T. Fuller Church-hist. Brit. ix. 84 It is a bad signe, when suspicious persons are over-preying to know the windows, doors,..and contrivances of their neighbours houses.

1851 G. Spring First Things 269 By their over-prying curiosity, they lay open their own minds to his artful and intriguing suggestions.

1860 Littell's Living Age 66 720 Sometimes it happens that an over-prying public, with a curiosity not much in this instance to be commended, peeps within the pages of the medical press.

1874 Cornhill Mag. 30 166 Where flags and titles might pass unquestioned, and mutual profit hoodwink the Argus eyes of any over-prying official.

1996 Yale French Stud. No. 90. 55 A spectacular decoy to deflect over-prying eyes from the intertextual passions of her Minuit work.

2000 Philadelphia Tribune (Nexis) 116 1 b The man in the chair shifted his full attention from the self-admitted overprying reporter who was offering up question after question, to the young boy.