prurient

comparative more prurient · superlative most prurient

1. Uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious anxiety or propensity; lustful.

   It must be removed at once, lest it disturb the young and arouse in adults the most prurient thoughts.

   2010 [2008], Stephen Sartarelli, Love and the Erotic in Art, US: John Paul Getty Trust, translation of Amore ed erotismo by Stefano Zuffi, page 7

   2 more examples

   We know that at that period certain indecencies in the dresses, even of those who were considered as the most refined and polished men of the age, were not only tolerated but ostentatiously displayed, and every sort of device that the most prurient mind could think of was had recourse to, to attract attention or excite a smile.

   1823, “The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, Etc”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 781

   For example, some of the more prudish senders may have averted their attention from the sexual pictures while other more prurient viewers may have intensified their gaze.

   1995, Brian Parkinson, Ideas and Realities of Emotion, page 124

   Synonyms: lustful

2. Arousing or appealing to sexual desire.

   […]nor is it more prurient or lascivious than many productions to be found in a circulating library.

   1825, The Literary Chronicle for the Year 1825, London, page 156

   1 more example

   But in contemporary consumerist societies, when the kids are safely in bed, television programs allow viewers to indulge their more prurient interests.

   2008, Marcel Danesi, Popular Culture: Introductory Perspectives, page 204

   Synonyms: titillating

3. Curious, especially inappropriately so.

   Much of my discussion in the previous two chapters has focused on the dichotomy in Alemán's novel between the author's stated interest in moral didacticism and the more prurient appeal of the novel's representations of material privation and violent spectacle.

   2005, Donald Gilbert-Santamaría, Writers on the Market: Consuming Literature in Early Seventeenth-century Spain, page 130

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   Had she known that prurient anecdotes, breaches of confidence, scandalous facts, and cruel observations, were intended to constitute the matter and to enhance the price, her very heart would have broken under the affliction such a disgraceful proceeding exhibited,...

   1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 303–304