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Prudish doctor startled CIA
Answer for the clue "Prudish doctor startled CIA ", 12 letters:
strait-laced
Word definitions for strait-laced in dictionaries
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
adj. exaggeratedly proper; "my straitlaced Aunt Anna doesn't approve of my miniskirts" [syn: priggish , prim , prissy , prudish , puritanical , square-toed , straitlaced , straightlaced , straight-laced , tight-laced , victorian ]
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., of stays or bodices, "made close and tight;" see strait (adj.) + lace (v.). Figurative sense of "over-precise, prudish, strict in manners or morals" is from 1550s.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Strait-laced \Strait"-laced`\, a. Bound with stays. Let nature have scope to fashion the body as she thinks best; we have few well-shaped that are strait-laced. --Locke. Restricted; stiff; constrained. [R.] --Fuller. Rigid in opinion; strict in manners ...
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
a. 1 (alternative spelling of straight-laced English) 2 bind with stays.
Usage examples of strait-laced.
Any time she wanted to fill her house with guests, she could do so and these guests would be far more entertaining, far more handsomely dressed than those prissy, strait-laced old fools who disapproved of her.
Christ cultists had something of a reputation for strait-laced behavior.
She clenched her teeth tightly together to keep in certain words and phrases which she knew might shock her strait-laced and proper husband.
The strait-laced northerner's disapproving gaze could chill any gathering.
Secondly, well, what with the almost complete coverage of most of the clothing worn on the island, and all the many and pious references to religion, I had gotten the impression that these were an overly strait-laced sort of people.
There was something almost schizophrenic about the way these people were super strait-laced at some times and totally uninhibited at others.