English edit

Etymology edit

Name of the interfering protagonist in John Poole's 1825 comic play of the same name; alliterative, from pry.

Noun edit

Paul Pry

  1. A nosy person.
    • 1841, Sir Thomas Charles Morgan, Lady Morgan (Sydney), The Book Without a Name (volume 1, page 83)
      This self-gratulation is very natural; but it is not very just. The desire of knowledge is innate in human nature. We are all born more or less of a Paul Pry, and inherit a good dash of the temperament of "our general mother".