First recorded in 1895–1900; after A. Comstock ( def. ) + -ery
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the early 20th century, this idea of Comstockery becomes really popular.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 28, 2023
His name may be forgotten, but the age of Comstockery is not over.
From New York Times ● Sep. 20, 2019
After the bad days of Comstockery, the quality of his poetry was improving with the quality of his encounters:
From Salon ● Jan. 11, 2014
On his overheated typewriter he minted words and phrases that became part of the national currency: "booboisie," "bozart," "Comstockery," "Bible Belt."
From Time Magazine Archive
What Comstockery does is bad enough, but its real awfulness lies in the fact that it seems to fairly enough represent us in our attitude toward a certain class of ideas and things.
From Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 by Goldman, Emma
"Trilby" is assaulted by the united comstockery of a dozen cities, and "The Yoke" somehow escapes.
From A Book of Prefaces by Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
In comstockery, if I do not err, the new Puritanism gave a sign of its formal departure from the old, and moral endeavour suffered a general overhauling and tightening of the screws.
From A Book of Prefaces by Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
In all this dread of free inquiry, this childish skittishness in both writers and public, this dearth of courage and even of curiosity, the influence of comstockery is undoubtedly to be detected.
From A Book of Prefaces by Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
But though the effects of comstockery are thus abominably insane and irritating, the fact is not to be forgotten that, after all, the thing is no more than an effect itself.
From A Book of Prefaces by Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
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.
