different between prudish vs starched

English

Etymology

prude +? -ish

Adjective

prudish (comparative more prudish, superlative most prudish)

1. of excessive propriety; easily offended or shocked, especially by sexual matters

Derived terms

• prudishly
• prudishness
• unprudish

Related terms

• prudery
• prudishness

Translations

See also

• straight-laced
• prim
• priggish
• prissy
• puritanical

English

Verb

starched

1. simple past tense and past participle of starch

Adjective

starched (comparative more starched, superlative most starched)

1. Of a garment: having had starch applied.
2. Stiff, formal, rigid; prim and proper.
   • 1712, Jonathan Swift, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, Dublin: George Faulkner, 1751, Volume 1, pp. 102-103,^[1]

     Does the Gospel any where prescribe a starched squeezed Countenance, a stiff formal Gait, a Singularity of Manners and Habit, or any affected Modes of Speech, different from the reasonable Part of Mankind?

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, London: J. Johnson, Part 1, Chapter 5, Section 3, pp. 217-218,^[2]

     A cultivated understanding, and an affectionate heart, will never want starched rules of decorum—something more substantial than seemliness will be the result; and, without understanding the behaviour here recommended, would be rank affectation.

   • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy, Volume 2, Chapter 8,^[3]

     I was not a little startled at recognising in his companions that very Morris on whose account I had been summoned before Justice Inglewood, and Mr. MacVittie the merchant, from whose starched and severe aspect I had recoiled on the preceding day.

   • 1961, Bernard Malamud, A New Life, Penguin, 1968, p. 107,^[4]

     ‘ […] CD is a fair-enough scholar but starched like my grand-daddy’s collar.’

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:starched.

Anagrams

• cartshed, destarch, herd cats