Paul Dini

The Joker is a tremendous vehicle for talented actors. Cesar Romero's was a bubbly, lunatic criminal. Nicholson did him as a vain, preening manipulator. Heath's performance of the Joker was remarkable, too. His was a low-simmering crazy street clown. Joker can be played all these ways, and they're all true.

American Writer

Kenneth Langone

Nothing so enchants attorneys general, their eyes generally fixed on higher public office, as slinging accusations against successful financial executives. Preening press conferences and fawning media coverage are virtually guaranteed, whether or not the charges have substance.

American Businessman

Timothy D. Snyder

Trump's Twitter flood of late-night mendacity is an unhindered celebration of fragile manhood, a ceaseless summons to the millions for affirmation, a proclamation to vulnerable men across the land that endless preening and stroking is a normal and imitable way of life.

American Author

Louise Nurding

There's nothing worse than looking as if you've tried too hard or preened to within an inch of your life. If I'm wearing a strong item like a really beautiful dress, then I'll play down my shoes and accessories and make my hair really natural.

British Musician

George Will

Traditionally, baseball punishes preening. In a society increasingly tolerant of exhibitionism, it is splendid when a hitter is knocked down because in his last at bat he lingered at the plate to admire his home run.

Journalist

John Thorn

For many of us, sport has provided the continuity in our lives, the alternative family to the one we left behind. It gives us something to talk about, to preen about, to care about.

American Historian

Maureen Dowd

Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you're not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements.

American Journalist

Julie Burchill

Women, more often than not, do things which aren't remotely relaxing but are all about preening, which is just another sort of work.

British Journalist

David Brin

Strutting and preening is, in fact, the surest sign of an inferiority complex.

Mason Cooley

Typically describes birds, emphasizes attention to detail and care in grooming.

Animal Behavior

People preening might be preparing for an event or trying to look their best.

Self-Improvement

When used for people, it can suggest vanity or excessive concern with appearance.

Vanity Connotation

Preen when used this way implies showing off achievements with pride, often to excess.

Boastful Pride

Overuse of 'preen' in this sense might portray a person negatively, as arrogant or smug.

Negative Implication

 endangered whooping cranes living in the wild the rescued pelicans from this late june release appeared to be adapting one of the things you look for for animals or for wildlife is do they go out there and did they start preening you know whenever a pelican start screening it's

Relocated Gulf Pelicans...

 very straight and we're watching it go right up to it's up to it's nasal passages this or add up to the end of the beak in the mud and that it's a really nice depth and also enables them to preen a little bit easier as you can see the long beak like that helps you

Double the Lion Prides –...

 just splash themselves and then they fly up onto the branch and they splashed himself again and they flop onto the branch mostly down to further maintenance and helping to get rid of some of the dust and the oil from the preen gland but I have heard other gods

Safari Live - Day 162 PIPE...

 banana and this guy well affectionately known as the flying chili pepper and as yesterday we had the yellow bill hornbill on the school drive busy doing pretty much the same as this sitting in the shade doing a little bit of preening in the

Safari Live - Day 340 PIPE...

 such large colonies safety and protection of course once they are safe and protected flamingos like these are free to devote their time to things like preening which is using their bills to distribute oil from a gland at the base

Giant Animal Swarms PIPE...

 break it open yeah I can't help myself and this is the closest I've ever been to an Egyptian vulture giving himself a little bit of a preen but look at things incredible

Safari Live - Day 226 PIPE...

 here in albany in the south of france the pigeons come to the river to bathe they need to preen their flight feathers clean off the city dust and cool themselves down

The Fish That Hunts...

 too occupied in preening to care but her admirer has ways to get himself noticed she sees more subtleties of color than we can and she detects ultraviolet to a

Budgie Courtship Ritual...

 it's preening now it's it's just millimeters from the edge of the lid and it's it's stopped and it's preening its antennae and leg

Best Spider Moments PIPE...

 it's lip now it's it's just millimeters from the edge of the lid and it's it's stopped and it's preening its antennae and leg