priggish

American  

[prig-ish] / ˈprɪg ɪʃ /

adjective

1. fussy about trivialities or propriety, especially in a self-righteous or irritating manner.

   At the beginning of the book, Eustace is an unpleasant, unlikable, and priggish character.

   He never softened his message to please genteel tastes or priggish scruples.

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Other Word Forms

• priggishly adverb
• priggishness noun
• unpriggish adjective

Etymology

Origin of priggish

prig ¹ ( def. ) + -ish ¹

Example Sentences

He’s not a priggish bootstrapper but a plucky bon vivant who does his work with a smile, always “on the alert for business.”

From New York Times • Apr. 5, 2022

Despite the wonderful freedom of living in a less priggish society, there is a cost to abandoning the electric-fence thrill of taboos, the spark of naughtiness.

From Washington Post • Dec. 16, 2019

The corporate culture that it reflects and embodies is, above all, sanctimoniousness, nostalgic, and priggish.

From The New Yorker • Nov. 19, 2019

This priggish sleight of hand is Barr’s wheelhouse.

From Slate • May 2, 2019

Mantell was a lanky assemblage of shortcomings–he was vain, self-absorbed, priggish, neglectful of his family–but never was there a more devoted amateur paleontologist.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson