prudery
Americannoun
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pruderies
plural
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excessive propriety or modesty in speech, conduct, etc.
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pruderies, prudish actions, phrases, or words.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of prudery
From the French word pruderie, dating back to 1700–10. See prude, -ery
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:
But when you strip away the social conventions from which a show’s crisis develops — prudery, repression, outerwear, what have you — you leave the action unmotivated and unmoored.
From New York Times ● Jun. 20, 2023
Thanks to local prudery and Robert Moses, it was never realized.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 20, 2019
My objection isn’t rooted in prudery but in artistic tact.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2019
But along with prurience and prudery, there’s outright oddness, too.
From Salon ● Apr. 13, 2014
It was, notably, a period of prudery, of all which, objectively, I disliked; while at the same time there had been the undercurrent of license that always accompanied an oppressive hypocrisy.
From San Crist?bal de la Habana by Joseph Hergesheimer
I’d never elbow him off to crusades with my pruderies.
From The Saint's Tragedy by Charles Kingsley
She stands, the representative of the ethical level of the age, not of fixed pruderies.
From Without Prejudice by Israel Zangwill
Forget wholly and for ever all small pruderies, and remember that you cannot change ancestral feelings of right and wrong without what is practically soul-murder.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) by Andrew Lang
The crack of that great spark emptied the jar; the American people forgot all about their pledges and pruderies during the four years of Civil War.
From A Book of Prefaces by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
She has stopped my mouth overlong with her pruderies and her scruples.
From The Fair Maid of Perth Or, St. Valentine's Day by Sir Walter Scott
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