prissy person
someone who is excessively proper and correct
TRANSLATION
prissy person = jemand der prüde, etepetete oder zimperlich ist --- GOOGLE INDEX prissy: approximately 1,400,000 hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
"I'm not a PRISSY PERSON. I like things that you can wear, throw on the floor, pick up, and it still looks cool."
- fashion designer Robert Geller
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Lieutenant White, was a rather PRISSY individual and being the junior officer on the staff,... Some thought him rather strange because of his huge handlebar mustache which he kept waxed and carefully groomed with the tips curled up into half circles.
- Lt. Russel W. Cloer - Biography
- fashion designer Robert Geller
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Lieutenant White, was a rather PRISSY individual and being the junior officer on the staff,... Some thought him rather strange because of his huge handlebar mustache which he kept waxed and carefully groomed with the tips curled up into half circles.
- Lt. Russel W. Cloer - Biography
Did you
know?
prissy person
noun phrase
- a person who is always behaving and dressing in a way that is considered correct and that does not shock
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
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WORD ORIGIN
Prissy is likely a combination of the words prim and sissy. Prim is an adjective that means "feeling or showing disapproval of anything improper" (Oxford Dictionary) and probably stems from the Old French prin, "excellent, delicate" and from Latin primus "first". Sissy is a person regarded as timid or cowardly or a boy or man regarded as effeminate (American Heritage Dictionary) and is a diminutive of "sis", informal for sister.
A discussion of prissy is not complete without highlighting "goody two-shoes", a peculiar-sounding phrase that is synonymous with prissy. It's a phrase of disapproval that is often prefaced with "little" (She's just a little goody two-shoes!).
Goody Two-Shoes is the name of an 18th century nursery tale. The heroine of the story, an orphan girl named Margery Meanwell, goes through life with only one shoe. When a rich gentleman gives her a complete pair of shoes, she is so happy that she runs around telling everyone that she has "two shoes." Later, Margery becomes a teacher, and marries a rich widower. This earning of wealth serves as proof that it pays to be virtuous, which was a popular theme in children's literature of this era.
Though we might laugh at such virtues today, maybe our grandchildren will one day giggle about their prissy grandparents.
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SYNONYMS
(prissy person)
goody two-shoes, old maid, prude, Victorian
(prissy)
Victorian, effeminate, epicene, fastidious, finicky, fussy, genteel, goody-goody, overnice, pansified, persnickety, picky, precious, prim, prudish, puritanical, sissified, sissy, squeamish, stickler, strait-laced, stuffy, tight-laced, unmanly
(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"You won't find any prissy persons at the agency, they have a very open culture."
noun phrase
- a person who is always behaving and dressing in a way that is considered correct and that does not shock
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
WORD ORIGIN
Prissy is likely a combination of the words prim and sissy. Prim is an adjective that means "feeling or showing disapproval of anything improper" (Oxford Dictionary) and probably stems from the Old French prin, "excellent, delicate" and from Latin primus "first". Sissy is a person regarded as timid or cowardly or a boy or man regarded as effeminate (American Heritage Dictionary) and is a diminutive of "sis", informal for sister.
A discussion of prissy is not complete without highlighting "goody two-shoes", a peculiar-sounding phrase that is synonymous with prissy. It's a phrase of disapproval that is often prefaced with "little" (She's just a little goody two-shoes!).
Goody Two-Shoes is the name of an 18th century nursery tale. The heroine of the story, an orphan girl named Margery Meanwell, goes through life with only one shoe. When a rich gentleman gives her a complete pair of shoes, she is so happy that she runs around telling everyone that she has "two shoes." Later, Margery becomes a teacher, and marries a rich widower. This earning of wealth serves as proof that it pays to be virtuous, which was a popular theme in children's literature of this era.
Though we might laugh at such virtues today, maybe our grandchildren will one day giggle about their prissy grandparents.
---
SYNONYMS
(prissy person)
goody two-shoes, old maid, prude, Victorian
(prissy)
Victorian, effeminate, epicene, fastidious, finicky, fussy, genteel, goody-goody, overnice, pansified, persnickety, picky, precious, prim, prudish, puritanical, sissified, sissy, squeamish, stickler, strait-laced, stuffy, tight-laced, unmanly
(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)
---
SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"You won't find any prissy persons at the agency, they have a very open culture."
