Find the word definition

Crossword clues for puritanical

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
puritanical
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Americans tend to be more puritanical than Europeans.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He became more puritanical, searching my room and handbag regularly.
▪ If anything, pentecostals are generally viewed as being more puritanical than other women, not more promiscuous.
▪ It was perhaps no wonder that he reacted against the spartan, puritanical environment of Potsdam.
▪ LaLanne had added a new dimension to the diet gurus' puritanical quest for spiritual salvation through the body: exercise.
▪ Money is the root of all evil, dictates the puritanical thought of the Old Age.
▪ The attitude many people have toward abortion is part of what Moore calls a puritanical streak in the United States.
▪ They figure this was a puritanical overreaction to a handful of innocent pictures and claim it raises the chilling specter of censorship.
▪ This puritanical, megalithic masonry was the chosen style of Muhammed bin Tughluk.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Puritanical

Puritanic \Pu`ri*tan"ic\, Puritanical \Pu`ri*tan"ic*al\, a.

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

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

    Paritanical circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded.
    --Macaulay.

    He had all the puritanic traits, both good and evil.
    --Hawthorne.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
puritanical

c.1600, from Puritan + -ical. Chiefly in disparaging use. Related: Puritanically.

Wiktionary
puritanical

a. 1 Of or pertaining to the Puritans, or to their doctrines and practice. 2 Precise in observance of legal or religious requirements; strict; overscrupulous; rigid; — often used by way of reproach or contempt. n. One who holds puritanical attitudes.

WordNet
puritanical
  1. adj. of or relating to Puritans or Puritanism

  2. exaggeratedly proper; "my straitlaced Aunt Anna doesn't approve of my miniskirts" [syn: priggish, prim, prissy, prudish, square-toed, straitlaced, strait-laced, straightlaced, straight-laced, tight-laced, victorian]

  3. morally rigorous and strict; "blue laws"; "the puritan work ethic"; "puritanic distaste for alcohol"; "she was anything but puritanical in her behavior" [syn: blue(a), puritan, puritanic]

Usage examples of "puritanical".

Descenders accuse the Ascenders of being repressive, puritanical, life-denying, sex-denying, earth-destroying, and body-ignoring.

British fans put on displays of public affection that the staid, puritanical American attendees beheld in bemused astonishment.

Just as the leopard cannot change his spots, so could I not overnight and by the simple pronouncing of words and the exchanging of rings before witnesses convert myself to a circumspect and drearily puritanical sobersides.

The case of Udal, a Puritanical clergyman, seems singular even in those arbitrary times.

A few minutes after she entered with her puritanical mother, who told me I must not be surprised to see her daughter better dressed, as she was going to be married in a few days.

This house of commons, which, like all the preceding, during the reigns of James and Charles, and even of Elizabeth, was much governed by the Puritanical party, thought that they could not better serve their cause than by branding and punishing the Arminian sect, which, introducing an innovation in the church, were the least favored and least powerful of all their antagonists.

Peremptory, plain spoken, puritanical in her concepts -of honour and truth, in no way did Bids resemble the servile, cozening girls he had known.

In the Chibcha legends, Bochica wandered through the countryside teaching not only useful crafts but a puritanical attitude toward life.

Basilicon Doron, written while he was in Scotland, that the republican ideas of the origin of power from the people, were at that time esteemed Puritanical novelties.

Descenders accuse the Ascenders of being repressive, puritanical, life-denying, sex-denying, earth-destroying, and body-ignoring.

Her dress was a puritanical grey one with a broad white linen collar: over it she was wearing a plain brown holland apron, like those which the housemaids wore when cleaning.

The cautious, even puritanical facet of one side of the Fischel nature, he supposed, had been answerable for this discretion: and although many a time it had irked him with its inconvenience, he had adhered to it with a strictness he considered his only remaining virtue.

He was a ritual tea smoker and very puritanical about junk the way some teaheads are.

The Descenders accuse the Ascenders of being repressive, puritanical, life-denying, sex-denying, earth-destroying, and body-ignoring.

It's one of the more puritanical and bass-ackwards planets in this quadrant of the galaxy.