priggish

American  

[prig-ish] / ˈprɪg ɪʃ /

adjective

1. fussy about trivialities or propriety, especially in a self-righteous or irritating manner.

   At the beginning of the book, Eustace is an unpleasant, unlikable, and priggish character.

   He never softened his message to please genteel tastes or priggish scruples.

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Other Word Forms

• priggishly adverb
• priggishness noun
• unpriggish adjective

Etymology

Origin of priggish

prig ¹ ( def. ) + -ish ¹

Explanation

Priggish people are snobby and self-righteous. An overly prim and proper movie character who's always telling other people what they should do is priggish. If you offer your opinion on how your friends should live their lives, and especially if you're very uptight and snooty, people will think you're priggish. The adjective priggish comes from the eighteenth century prig, "precise in speech and manners," which was also used to mean "religiously devout." Earlier, a prig was "a petty thief."

Example Sentences

Frank Burns, the priggish Army doctor who was obsessed with nurse “Hot Lips” Houlihan in “MASH,” Duvall specialized in tightly wound tough guys.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 16, 2026

He aimed his deepest scorn at Nunn, whom he blamed for his downfall, denouncing him as blindly ambitious, duplicitous, timid, and priggish.

From Slate • Jan. 23, 2025

He’s not a priggish bootstrapper but a plucky bon vivant who does his work with a smile, always “on the alert for business.”

From New York Times • Apr. 5, 2022

Despite the wonderful freedom of living in a less priggish society, there is a cost to abandoning the electric-fence thrill of taboos, the spark of naughtiness.

From Washington Post • Dec. 16, 2019

Forgetting that he’d ever been way behind the fashion curve, he was appalled, in some priggish, nouveau riche kind of way, that certain passengers appeared in the dining room in slacks and sneakers.

From "Endgame" by Frank Brady