Skip to content
HOW TO PRONOUNCE

prone

/pɹoʊn/

Press play to hear how to pronounce prone.

American Pronunciation Guide · 1:03
Watch on YouTube ↗

What does prone mean?

adjective

  1. Lying face-down.
  2. Of the hand, forearm or foot: turned facing away from the body; with the thumb inward or big toe downward.
  3. Having a downward inclination or slope.
More meanings (4)

adjective

  1. Shooting from a position while lying down.
  2. (figuratively) Predisposed, liable, inclined, given (to something) (most often, specifically to being befallen by an unsought bad outcome, rather than to undertaking a willful behavior or to having a happy accident).

verb

  1. To place in a prone position, to place face down.

proper noun

  1. Alternative form of Prome (“the city of Pyay”).

Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0

IPA pronunciation

/pɹoʊn/

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0

Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.

In the pages of books

See this word in context.

I found myself lying prone upon a bed of yellowish, mosslike vegetation which stretched around me in all directions for interminable miles.
Edgar Rice BurroughsA princess of MarsProject Gutenberg ebook #62
The window went up, a maid-servant’s discordant voice profaned the holy calm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr’s remains!
Mark TwainThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer, CompleteProject Gutenberg ebook #74
More book examples (3)
And the strength of my rage carried me so far as where the horse stood, and then I fell prone beside it.
Anthony HopeThe prisoner of ZendaProject Gutenberg ebook #95
For some minutes he lay prone on the tin roof, and during that time a number of distressing ideas occurred to him.
Christopher MorleyThe Haunted BookshopProject Gutenberg ebook #172
All of them have one, in point of fact, but only when age comes, age prone to rest and to long slumbers.
Jean-Henri FabreThe Life of the SpiderTranslated by Alexander Teixeira de MattosProject Gutenberg ebook #1887