prig

¹ American  

[prig] / prɪg /

noun

1. 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.

   Synonyms:

   bluenose, puritan, prude

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prig ² American  

[prig] / prɪg /

verb (used with object)

prigged, prigging

1. Chiefly British. to steal.

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verb (used without object)

prigged, prigging

1. Scot. and North England. to haggle or argue over price.

2. British Informal. to beg or entreat; ask a favor.

noun

1. Chiefly British. a thief.

prig ¹ British  

/ prɪɡ /

verb

1. another word for steal

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noun

1. another word for thief

prig ² British  

/ prɪɡ /

noun

1. a person who is smugly self-righteous and narrow-minded

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Other Word Forms

• priggery noun
• priggish adjective
• priggishly adverb
• priggism noun

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

Example Sentences

What if I sounded like a moralizing, self-righteous prig?

From Salon

Are you as warmhearted as you say you are, or are you just a crusty old prig who wants to watch old empires while eating your chips and seven-bean dip?

From Washington Post

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

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

Roth won every major literary award except the Nobel, and that omission became an embarrassment not to Roth but to the committee, which one observer suggested was “full of out-of-touch Swedish prigs.”

From Washington Post

Related Words

• goody two-shoes
• goody-goody