puritan

plural puritans

1. derogatoryusuallyA puritanical person.

   These new puritans have turned out to be surprisingly unskilled and inexperienced - very different from my generation who invented wife-swapping, orgies and free love in the late Sixties and early Seventies.

   2016 August 5, Janet Street-Porter, “Anxious young people may be having less sex than ever before, but we baby boomers are still obsessed with it”, in The Independent

comparative more puritan · superlative most puritan

1. derogatoryusuallyActing or behaving according to the Puritan morals (e.g. propagating modesty), especially with regard to pleasure, nudity and sex; ascetic.

   A pietistic protestantism, rigid, self-righteous, unintellectual, obsessed with puritan morality to the point where hypocrisy was its automatic companion, dominated this desolate epoch.

   1962, Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution. 1789-1848, page 187

   Synonyms: prude, puritanical

plural Puritans

1. A member of a particular Protestant religious sect advocating greater purity and piety.

comparative more Puritan · superlative most Puritan

1. Alternative letter-case form of puritan.

   I learned to work from my grandfather, who held a very Puritan kind of work ethic.

   2019, Susan L. Popham, “Teaching Editing through a Feminist Theoretical Lens”, in Suzan Flanagan, Michael J. Albers, editors, Editing in the Modern Classroom, Routledge, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   It’s a seedy time of the night and Jacky is telling me about sailors and their needs. A man called P. C. Alexander, an ex-Indian High-Commissioner in London has cleaned up Madras. There’s a very Puritan atmosphere here now, and the seamen are not happy. ‘All ship’s crew very happy with Calcutta. Can bring many girls there. Bombay too – no problem.’ Bombay is apparently the only city in India to license prostitutes.

   1989, Michael Palin, Around the World in 80 Days, BBC Books, →ISBN, page 111

   Chardonnay is very malleable, but once we get the fruit in we actually take a very Puritan approach to it.

   2009, Melissa Stackhouse, “Conversations with Bigwigs: Melissa Stackhouse”, in Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, Drink This: Wine Made Simple, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, →ISBN, chapter 5 (Chardonnay: Chic and Changeable), page 121