The old lion per is heth for lack of prey

Stag, dog, and all, which from or towards flies, Is paid with life or prey, or doing dies. Donne, The Calm. Hence-3. That which is given into the power of another or others; a victim. It may be men have now found out that God hath proposed the Christian clergy as a prey for all men freely to seize upon. Hooker , Eccles. Polity, VII. 24. I banish her my bed and company, And give her as a prey to law and shame. Shak., 2 Hen. VI., ii. 1. 198. The great men, giv'n to gluttony and di olute life, made a prey of the common people. Milton, Hist. Eng., vi.