The Only Use of
preoccupied
in
The Great Gatsby
- Most of the confidences were unsought — frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.†
p. 1.9
Definitions:
-
(1)
(preoccupied) busy thinking about or doing something so that other things are not noticed or done
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, preoccupied can mean that someone has already inhabited or taken something.