Prone to do/doing

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hello teachers and English experts,

When I looked the word up in the dictionaries, I got two different results:

(1) In the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:

prone to do something

Kids are all prone to eat junk food.

*While in the Cambridge Dictionaries Online:

be prone to sth/doind sth

He’s prone to forgetting thing.

Which one should we trust? Or is this probably the only case when ‘to’ can be both a particle and a preposition at the same time?

Thanks.

*prone | meaning - Cambridge Learner's Dictionary

P.S. I posted this query at another helpline, and nevertheress, would like to know the opinions of this Forum too. :wink:

2

This are not two different results for the definition of the word ‘prone’. They are two examples of phrases in which it is possible to use the word ‘prone’.
Also possible:
He’s prone to forget things.
Kids are all prone to eating junk food.

Personally, I would tend to use the base version without ‘-ing’.

3

Above all, thank you for replying! Is there any typo at the beginning of the sentence? I’m a bit confused (but I should say that I’m far from nitpicking)

Thanks.
4

These are…