uptight

comparative uptighter · comparative more uptight · superlative uptightest · superlative most uptight

1. colloquialExcessively concerned with rules and order, always serious.

   Don't be so uptight! You won't go to jail for crossing the street against the light.

2. Emotionally repressed; nervous and tense.
3. colloquialSexually repressed.

   He came from a very uptight religious background, but you wouldn't know that now!

4. colloquialUnfriendly or rude.

   Withnail: Just because the best tailoring you’ve ever seen is above your fucking appendix doesn’t mean anything. / Danny: Don’t get uptight with me, man.

   1987, Bruce Robinson, Withnail and I

plural uptights

1. colloquialAn uptight person.

   […] bunch of uptights who can be divided into two antagonistic factions: either they are gay and suffer from an excess of the fraternity spirit, or despite reaching middle-age they are still to be found fondling runaway teenagers […]

   1998, Stewart Home, Suspect Device: A Reader in Hard-edged Fiction, page 59