prude

noun

ˈprüd 

: a person who is excessively or priggishly attentive to propriety or decorum

especially : a woman who shows or affects extreme modesty

Synonyms

• bluenose
• moralist
• Mrs. Grundy
• nice nelly
• puritan
• wowser [chiefly Australian]

Examples of prude in a Sentence

He is too much of a prude to enjoy movies containing sex and violence.

the racy sitcom frequently satirizes exactly the sort of prude who would like to see the show taken off the air

Recent Examples on the Web

Give the Original ‘Twister’ a Spin Barbara Peeters is no prude. —Sarah Shachat, IndieWire, 19 July 2024

Despite a handful of prudes trying their best to spoil the fun. —Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 4 July 2024

Not that Fierstein suddenly became a prude. —Vulture, 25 Apr. 2022

This does not necessarily me a narc or a prude. —Eben Weiss, Outside Online, 9 Nov. 2022

Only a zealous prude could fully discount the entertainment in Oedipal friction, a source of narrative irony since, well, the myth of Oedipus. —Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 19 Jan. 2023

Everyone supports her but her boyfriend, who initially accuses her of being a prude. —Ilana Kaplan, Vulture, 27 Mar. 2022

Yet writers are eager to join in the jokes about the humorless prude who wants to stifle academic freedom, rather than trying to understand the whole story. —Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 7 Dec. 2010

In life, there is little evidence that Dickens was, in the context of his time and place, a sexist or a prude. —The New Yorker, 28 Feb. 2022

Word History

Etymology

French, good woman, prudish woman, short for prudefemme good woman, from Old French prode femme

First Known Use

1704, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for prude

• blued
• booed
• brewed
• brood
• chewed
• cooed
• crude
• cued
• dude
• feud
• food
• glued

Kids Definition

prude

noun

ˈprüd 

: a person who is easily shocked or offended by things that do not shock or offend others

prudish

ˈprüd-ish

adjective

prudishly adverb

prudishness noun