prig
noun
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.
prigs
-
present tense formof prig (3rd person singular).present tense
Used to describe things happening now or regularly.
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.
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 ● Jan. 8, 2023
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
P prigs In Middlemarch, George Eliot has Fred Vincy make the splendid observation that “correct English is the slang of prigs”.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 25, 2016
I am sure, though, that Mrs. Allingham used rather to put it over my mother for her inability to make little prigs of us.
From A Woman of Genius by Mary Hunter Austin
