puritanical

comparative more puritanical · superlative most puritanical · alternative Puritanical

1. Of or pertaining to the Puritans, or to their doctrines and practice.

   The host proposed divers puritanical fancies—nay, once hinted at a head of Cromwell himself; but the hostess overruled all these proposals, and stood firm by the Sun.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 192

2. Precise in observance of legal or religious requirements; strict; overscrupulous; rigid (often used by way of reproach or contempt).

   American society has a double standard when it comes to sexuality. We have a puritanical taboo against talking about sexuality directly, yet we are fine with the sexual images that pervade television and glossy magazines.

   2014 May 21, Rey Junco, “What’s the big deal about sexting?”, in CNN

   2 more examples

   Mrs. Barrymore is of interest to me. She is a heavy, solid person, very limited, intensely respectable, and inclined to be puritanical. You could hardly conceive a less emotional subject. Yet I have told you how, on the first night here, I heard her sobbing bitterly, and since then I have more than once observed traces of tears upon her face. Some deep sorrow gnaws ever at her heart. Sometimes I wonder if she has a guilty memory which haunts her, and sometimes I suspect Barrymore of being a domestic tyrant.

   1901 August – 1902 April, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “First Report of Dr. Watson”, in The Hound of the Baskervilles: Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, London: George Newnes, […], published 1902, →OCLC, page 168

   Exogamy […] has few or none of the quaint superstitions which lend a certain picturesque charm to totemism. It is, so to say, a stern Puritanical institution. Its rigid logic, its complex rules, its elaborate terminology, its labyrinthine systems of relationship, it presents an aspect somewhat hard and repellant.

   1910, James George Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, volume 1, page xiv

plural puritanicals · alternative Puritanical

1. One who holds puritanical attitudes.

comparative more Puritanical · superlative most Puritanical

1. Alternative letter-case form of puritanical.

   She has become very Puritanical, his daughter, and it baffles him, her strict views on religion.

   1996 April, Allegra Goodman, “The Four Questions”, in Commentary, volume 101, number 4

   5 more examples

   President Upham delivered a lengthy speech which covered the entire history of the Society along with some Puritanical sniffing.

   1965, H[arold] Earle Johnson, Hallelujah, Amen!: The Story of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, Boston, Mass.: Bruce Humphries, page 94

   […] in his writings he [Benjamin Franklin] took an earthy, practical view of sex that outraged Puritanical sentiment.

   1990 May 1, “The wisdom of Benjamin Franklin”, in Saturday Evening Post

   My mother’s philosophy of life was a happy one. She said children should have every pleasure that there was not some good reason they should not have—a radical point of view in those Puritanical times. . .

   1995 September, “Patty Smith Hill, gifted early childhood educator of the progressive era”, in Roeper Review, volume 18, number 1

   Crude humor and violence used to earn films R ratings. These days, to get an R, you need to show something really outrageous, like a naked woman. (The system is still Puritanical in matters of sex, adult romance and flesh.)

   2002 March 29, “This Essay Is Rated PG-13”, in Time

   Unlike the transgressions of Cokes, or of the grocer and his wife in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Busy’s willful and Puritanical misunderstanding of the theater meets with severe reproach.

   2003 summer, “Redressing Cross-Dressed Shakespeare”, in Academic Questions, volume 16, number 3