prissy
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- prissily adverb
- prissiness noun
Etymology
Origin of prissy
Explanation
A prissy person likes things to be neat and tidy, and expects people to follow the rules and be extremely polite. If your prissy cousin invites you to a tea party, you'd better arrive on time and wear your white gloves. Prissy people are extremely prim and proper, and they may also be so fastidious that the sight of your muddy dog running through the dining room will disgust them. You could also complain about your school's prissy dress code, which doesn't allow you to wear your Wonder Woman costume to math class. Prissy is thought to be a Southern US invention from the late 1800s, either rooted in precise, or a combination of sissy and prim.
Vocabulary lists containing prissy
Bridge to Terabithia
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The Shining
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The Sound and the Fury
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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.
He disparages “the global diplomatic system” as anachronistic, prissy, overpopulated.
From Washington Post • May 6, 2022
Acknowledging this by seeking better language is a basic effort to be polite, not prissy.
From Scientific American • Feb. 20, 2021
The prissy delivery, that thing he does with his mouth that’s less John Wayne than Clara Bow or Claudette Colbert.
From The Guardian • Oct. 15, 2020
In the original show, this number at least gets a big choral send-off; in the dry, crackly hands of Dame Judi, it becomes a prissy, self-satisfied catechism.
From New York Times • Dec. 22, 2019
Her sister’s hair was still up in its usual prissy bun, but Molly could see the monster, just beneath that thin mask of humanity they both wore.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
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.
