prig
noun
a person who displays or demands of others pointlessly precise conformity, fussiness about trivialities, or exaggerated propriety, especially in a self-righteous or irritating manner.
prigs
-
present tense formof prig (3rd person singular).present tense
Used to describe things happening now or regularly.
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.
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
There is nothing like her humor, or Shakespeare’s, or Dante’s, or Dickens’s or Dostoyevsky’s, in ancient tragedy or in our young Miltonic prigs who are writing intense novels just now.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2021
When Stiers played Winchester for comedy, his clipped diction and dry delivery made for one of television’s greatest prigs.
From Slate ● Mar. 4, 2018
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
They will then set us down as prigs and leave us alone.”
From Marjorie Dean College Freshman by Pauline Lester
