censorious

[sen-sawr-ee-uhs, -sohr-]

adjective

1. severely critical; faultfinding; carping.

censorious

/ sɛnˈsɔːrɪəs /

adjective

1. harshly critical; fault-finding

Other Word Forms

• censoriously adverb
• censoriousness noun
• anticensorious adjective
• anticensoriously adverb
• anticensoriousness noun
• noncensorious adjective
• noncensoriously adverb
• noncensoriousness noun
• overcensorious adjective
• overcensoriously adverb
• overcensoriousness noun
• uncensorious adjective
• uncensoriously adverb
• uncensoriousness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of censorious¹

1530–40; < Latin cēnsōrius of a censor, hence, austere, moral; censor, -tory ¹

Example Sentences

Even after her mother’s death in 2020 at 96, that censorious voice remained “embedded in my most primitive responses, in my very limbic system.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

But the council’s censorious plans for the library made them “outraged, and this was enough,” said Carryl.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Perhaps to the dismay of the censorious, it is also instructional.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The West can be just as censorious as China, he said Tuesday.

Read more on Seattle Times

Beauchamp portrays this as a fight between Christian conservatives and "Barstool conservatives," who he describes as dude-bros less interested in Jesus and more in hating "what they see as censorious political correctness."

Read more on Salon