prig
1 Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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prigs,
present (3rd person singular)
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prigged,
past participle, past
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prigging
present participle
verb (used without object)
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prigs,
present (3rd person singular)
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prigged,
past participle, past
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prigging
present participle
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Scot. and North England. to haggle or argue over price.
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British Informal. to beg or entreat; ask a favor.
noun
verb
noun
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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prigsimple
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prigssimple
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have priggedperfect
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has priggedperfect
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am priggingprogressive
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are priggingprogressive
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is priggingprogressive
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have been priggingperfect progressive
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has been priggingperfect progressive
Past
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priggedsimple
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had priggedperfect
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was priggingprogressive
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were priggingprogressive
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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
Other additions to the story seem designed to make the male characters more odious — Uncle Matthew more of a violent ogre, Fanny’s husband, Alfred, more of a domineering prig.
From New York Times ● Jul. 29, 2021
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
“Poor Bors. I hope he was not too much of a prig about it?”
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
“We are all a bunch of prigs in Washington, after all.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 25, 2018
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
How the prigs managed to nab the labels “correct” and “proper” for their particular form of slang is another matter.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 25, 2016
A fine set of solemn prigs we are getting!”
From Satires And Profanities by G. W. (George William) Foote
I've brought an enamelled mug, because it doesn't break like a teacup, and a little old Britannia metal teapot that I prigged from the attic.
From The Head Girl at the Gables by Angela Brazil
To-day my Thermos flask in a leather case, in which I carry my lunch, was prigged from the kitchen.
From My War Experiences in Two Continents by Betty Keays-Young Salmon
The pocket-book you prigged contained the letters I wanted.
From Jack Sheppard A Romance by William Harrison Ainsworth
"She wouldn't give me a photograph for you, Michael—said you'd never know her—so I prigged this from her sitting-room last time I was there."
From The Black Opal by Katharine Susannah Prichard
Now you'll grant it's more probable, Bill—as a man of the world, if you please— That all these should have prigged from myself than that I should have prigged from all these.
From The Heptalogia by Algernon Charles Swinburne
"And instead o' the raging I was prigging for," the soft-hearted maid told her friends, "she gave me a flannel petticoat!"
From Sentimental Tommy The Story of His Boyhood by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie
Aha!" quoth Godby the peddler, winking roguish eye, "On the prigging lay perchance, cull, or peradventure the mill-ken?
From Black Bartlemy's Treasure by Jeffery Farnol
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
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
The drying and bleaching linen was an unceasing attraction to rascals like Autolycus, who had a "pugging tooth"—that is, a prigging tooth.
From Old-Time Gardens Newly Set Forth by Alice Morse Earle
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