moralistic
Americanadjective
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explaining or interpreting something in terms of right and wrong, especially in a self-righteous or tiresome way.
They reject both the moralistic view of addiction as willful evil and the medical model of addiction as a disease.
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emphasizing morality, especially unduly; moralizing.
She frowns on moralistic preaching that focuses on ethical duty divorced from the gospel of grace and gratitude.
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concerned with regulating the morals of others, as by imposing censorship or other restrictions.
By trying to protect people from their own mistakes, moralistic laws prevent them from learning responsibility.
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relating to or being a philosopher or philosophy chiefly concerned with principles of morality.
During this period of antiquity, a number of moralistic philosophies emerged at the same time in different parts of the world.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of moralistic
First recorded in 1840–45; moralist ( def. ) + -ic ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Biopics are “an exasperating genre,” Variety wrote, smushing some of “the planet’s most unorthodox personalities into a reductive, overly moralistic mold.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 30, 2025
He invited controversy, however, not by advocating a more amoral, realpolitik foreign policy but by delivering a finger-wagging, highly moralistic lecture about, among other things, how our allies are insufficiently liberal about free expression.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 17, 2025
New York and New England went on to become competing centers of power and ideology: one pluralistic and globally-minded; the other moralistic, monocultural and, well, puritanical.
From Salon • Mar. 15, 2025
They have gone instead for chilly, moralistic and cautionary.
From New York Times • Jan. 31, 2024
Re-reading these brief moralistic appraisals usually left me disheartened.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
