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Definition of "prudery" [prud•er•y]

  • The state or quality of being prudish. (noun)
  • An instance of prudish behavior or talk. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "prudery" in a sentence
  • "From this professional and social high point, the swift collapse of Lawrence's reputation after his death in 1830, partly as the result of Victorian prudery, is an interesting matter of social history as much as art history."
  • "Recent studies in India, for example, where sexual prudery is the norm, show that very possibly a majority of girls are sexually molested, often by family members such as cousins, uncles, fathers and brothers."
  • "But the Serbs are not only peasants in prudery, they are artists and have some knowledge of handicrafts, so they saw that it was natural for a man cutting out the shape of a man to cut out the true shape of a man; they felt, therefore, no Puritan hatred of the statue, and their peasant thrift told them that it would be wicked waste to throw away a statue well carved in expensive material by an acknowledged master."