prig
1 Americannoun
verb (used with object)
-
prigs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
prigged,
past participle, past
-
prigging
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
prigs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
prigged,
past participle, past
-
prigging
present participle
-
Scot. and North England. to haggle or argue over price.
-
British Informal. to beg or entreat; ask a favor.
noun
verb
noun
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
prigsimple
-
prigssimple
-
have priggedperfect
-
has priggedperfect
-
am priggingprogressive
-
are priggingprogressive
-
is priggingprogressive
-
have been priggingperfect progressive
-
has been priggingperfect progressive
Past
-
priggedsimple
-
had priggedperfect
-
was priggingprogressive
-
were priggingprogressive
-
had been priggingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of prig1
First recorded in 1560–70; formerly, “coxcomb”; perhaps akin to prink
Origin of prig2
First recorded in 1505–15; originally thieves' cant; origin uncertain
Explanation
If you act like you're better than everyone else, they might start calling you a prig — a snobby and arrogant person. A prig might lecture his friends about their manners, or complain about having to eat at a diner instead of a fancier restaurant. Prigs tend to be self-centered and uptight and aren't much fun to be around. In the eighteenth century, prig meant "precise in speech in manners," and implied someone who was deeply religious. The origin of the word is a mystery — its earlier meanings included "dandy or fop" and "thief."
Vocabulary lists containing prig
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.
See Examples For:
What if I sounded like a moralizing, self-righteous prig?
From Salon ● Dec. 30, 2023
The Professor, Sonia’s father, is a selfish and pompous prig who hates Vanya as much as Vanya hates him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2023
I feel a bit like a stiff old prig myself even bringing this all up, but there’s one more thing that bugged me, which is how many times the word rake or rakish was used.
From Slate ● Feb. 7, 2021
But the benevolent smile lurking under the pre-World War I mustache is deceiving: The man is a sanctimonious prig who siphons all the fun out of life.
From New York Times ● Mar. 1, 2019
The transition from libertine to prig was so complete.
From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Throughout America’s renewed mania for book banning, I’ve been disappointed that “Rule of the Bone” hasn’t inspired more prigs to start collecting dry sticks.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 8, 2023
At the same time the intellectual elite—particularly the Bloomsbury set—took to ridiculing as prigs and bores the Victorian giants who had built up the economic and moral capital which they lived off.
From Economist ● Oct. 5, 2017
P prigs In Middlemarch, George Eliot has Fred Vincy make the splendid observation that “correct English is the slang of prigs”.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 25, 2016
Purists and prigs might recoil, but if they do, then Mr. Barker will probably feel that he has done his job.
From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2013
The youthful side of it represented to her so many puppies whose eyes had yet to open; the more mature side so many prigs who bored or patronised her.
From The White Hand and the Black A Story of the Natal Rising by Bertram Mitford
“We prigged wi’ Tammas no to gang to the manse till we was sure the minister was living.
From The Little Minister by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie
I have prigged the whole thing from the last Victorian Edition—with some slight variations….
From Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump; Being a First Selection from the Literary Remains of George Boon, Appropriate to the Times by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
And when attacked By rage of bibliophilic greed, You prigged that small Quantin Ovide, Although I prized it.
From In the Track of the Bookworm by Irving Browne
"I might have prigged this box of figs," the damsel said good-naturedly, "and you'd never have turned round."
From Burlesques by William Makepeace Thackeray
Look here, I'm in an awful rage about these thing's being prigged, because, of course, I've got the key of the shed; and didn't you hear what old Welsby said about it?
From The Triple Alliance Its trials and triumphs by Harold Avery
Of posthumous agency in thus picking the pockets of the prigging race, George Barrington's memory must be acquitted.
From The History of Tasmania , Volume II by John West
"Dont'ee tell her of my being here, Mr. Fenwick, and nobody shan't ever come anigh this place again,—not in the way of prigging anything."
From The Vicar of Bullhampton by Anthony Trollope
"What do you mean by prigging my things for your stall?" she demanded angrily.
From The Head Girl at the Gables by Angela Brazil
Next minute there was me, my very arms prigging wi' him to think better o't, and him standing ready to loup, has knees bent, and not a tremble in them.
From The Little Minister by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie
A walking morte is one unmarried: a doxe, a dell, and a kynchin morte, are all females; and a kynchen co is a young boy not thoroughly instructed in the art of canting and prigging.
From Microcosmography or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters by John Earle
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.
