puritanical
Americanadjective
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very strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so; rigidly austere.
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Sometimes Puritanical of, relating to, or characteristic of Puritans or Puritanism.
adjective
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derogatory strict in moral or religious outlook, esp in shunning sensual pleasures
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(sometimes capital) of or relating to a puritan or the Puritans
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of puritanical
Explanation
Strict, straight laced, and unsmiling, someone who is puritanical follows moral or religious rules to the letter. Describing someone as puritanical is usually a bit of a criticism, since the word implies that the person is not just religious, but overly rigid in his or her beliefs and not a lot of fun to be around. It stems from the word "Puritan," a believer in the branch of Protestantism that objected to some practices of the Church of England. Its root, in turn, is thought to be purity, which is what puritanical people seek when they stick to the rules.
Vocabulary lists containing puritanical
The Summer of Lost Letters
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Unit 8: Vocabulary from Readings
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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.
It highlighted societal changes in Saudi Arabia that allowed edgy American comedians to perform in a country long dismissed as irredeemably puritanical and regressive.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 23, 2025
The Jesus Army church recruited thousands of people to live in close-knit, puritanical communities in Northamptonshire, London and the Midlands.
From BBC • Jul. 28, 2025
It’s another element in Saudi Arabia’s about-face from a hermit kingdom notorious for puritanical laws to a tourist destination that can draw 150 million visitors a year.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 9, 2025
As Katharine Hepburn said in the movie, he was kind of puritanical, because those where the times back then.
From Salon • Nov. 23, 2024
Other hobgoblins were the brainchildren of self-proclaimed experts who cooked up idiosyncratic theories of how language ought to behave, usually with a puritanical undercurrent in which people’s natural inclinations must be a form of dissoluteness.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
