priggishadj.

1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew Priggish, Thievish.

1701 R. Steele Funeral iv. 61 Major General Trim, no, Pox Trim sounds so very short and Priggish—that my Name should be a Monosyllable!

1734 Honey-suckle 252 Now, with Bob-wig, he struts along the Street, So smart! so trim! so priggish! and so neat!

1755 J. Shebbeare Lydia (1769) II. 116 The priggish affection of yon thin old coxcomb, the earl, is so insipid and irksome, that it is intolerable.

1835 D. Booth Analyt. Dict. Eng. Lang. 59 In common language a Prig is a young Coxcomb, and has the adjective and adverb Priggish and Priggishly.

1882 Morning Rev. (Decatur, Illinois) 23 Sept. Such a fop—fanciful and priggish to the last degree. Not a wrinkle in the glittering uniform.

1731 ‘A. Scriblerus’ Gorgoneicon p. xvii A Pack of priggish, pretending, mutinous, and doubly-dissenting Ministers.

1752 S. Foote Taste ii. 25 I adore the Simplicity of the Antients! How unlike the present, priggish, prick-eard Puppies!

1836 C. Dickens Sketches by Boz 2nd Ser. 257 He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tidy: perhaps somewhat priggish.

1869 Pall Mall Gaz. 7 Jan. 12 There is..no moralizing of that offensively priggish kind which the instinct of boys teaches them to despise and mistrust.

1898 Sir E. Monson in Times 7 Dec. 5/2 At the risk of being branded by that terrible epithet ‘priggish’, which is, I suppose, held in some quarters to be the antithesis of ‘frank’.

1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love xi. 140 There was a certain priggish Sunday-school stiffness over him, priggish and detestable.

1957 Times 10 May 13/4 This letter may sound cautious, perhaps pussy-footed, almost priggish... We must tread softly.

1991 R. Brookhiser Way of WASP (1992) i. 8 And I used to have my little priggish laugh at the woman who counted her chickens before they were hatched and so forth.

1721 tr. P. Burman Oration against Stud. Humanities 87 Lest your Parents and Friends should find Fault that you have done nothing at University,..desire them to try you..at dancing and walking priggishly, at adjusting your Dress and Periwigs.

1860 G. Bancroft Hist. U.S. VIII. lvii. 257 A good secondary officer, priggishly exact in the mechanism of a regiment, but wholly unfit to plan a campaign or lead an army.

1991 D. Purcell Place of Stones (1992) viii. 291 The news-editor shook his head priggishly. ‘The Irish Record does things legally.’

1768 Adventures Oxymel Classic I. ix. 83 At length the whole exercise of academical priggishness being performed, he vouchsafed to admonish the company very seriously on the folly and indecency of their behaviour.

1834 Tait's Edinb. Mag. New Ser. 1 56/1 For the ‘compliment extern’ of Cockney priggishness and petty intellectual pretension, look at..Lord S——.

1989 J. Holmes & R. Lindley Values of Psychotherapy vi. 136 Psychotherapists are certainly not immune from priggishness or an overbearing conviction of their own rectitude.