Is "pying" a valid word? [closed]

I may not be spelling or using it correctly, but I often use the word "pying" to say one is seeking out something that belongs to another. Perhaps the word is altogether nonexistent and I have completely fabricated a word which I have been using in several essays. I nearly always follow the word with "for" as the letter Q is followed by U. Maybe a word like this exists and I have substituted it for a make believe one. It carries the meaning but not the arbitrarily assigned mashup of letters attributed to it.

Example uses:

"By then, their hunger had set in and were all pying for bread and coin."

"With all these companies pying for your money, it leaves a detrimental..."

"Prying and prodding and pying for a rare peek into the secret life..."

Solution 1:

I think you may mean pining, which is, indeed, virtually always followed by "for" and would (more-or-less) fit into all of your examples. From Cambridge Dictionaries:

pine for sth/sb
— phrasal verb with pine
to want or miss something or someone very much

It's more commonly used with the "miss someone" meaning, but it sounds like you are using it more with the "want something" part of the definition.

Solution 2:

I think you mean "vying"--you probably heard it some time and thought the v was a p.

"vying" is the present participle of "vie" to vie

to compete: Several companies are vying for the contract to build the new hospital.