prude

See also: Prude, prudě, prüde, and пруде

English

Etymology

From French prude, from Old French prude, prode, feminine of prou, prod, prud (“good, excellent, brave”), from Latin prōde. Related to proud but unrelated to prudent.

Pronunciation

• enPR: pro͞od, IPA^(key): /pɹuːd/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -uːd

Noun

prude (plural prudes)

1. A person who is or tries to be excessively proper, especially one who is easily offended by matters of a sexual nature.
   • 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part I, IV [Uniform ed., p. 62]:

     He became shy. "I hadn't meant to tell you. It's not quite for a lady." For, like most men who are rather animal, he was intellectually a prude.

   • 1991, Robert M. Pirsig, Lila:

     If you didn't go for Lila you're some kind of prissy old prude. If you did go for her you were some kind of dirty old man.

Synonyms

• prig
• goody-goody
• puritan
• celibacist
• erotophobe
• antisexualist

Derived terms

• prudely
• prudery
• prudish
• prudist

Related terms

• proud

Translations

A person who is or tries to be excessively proper

• Catalan: purità m
• Czech: prudérní (cs) m
• Danish: sippe c, snerpe c
• Dutch: preut (nl)
• Esperanto: prudulo, prudulino
• Finnish: sievistelijä (fi)
• French: bégueule (fr) m or f, prude (fr) m or f, sainte-nitouche (fr) f
• Galician: mexericas, mexeriqueiro m, mexeriqueira f, puritano m, puritana f
• German: prüde Person f, Prüder m, Prüde f
• Greek: σεμνότυφος (el) (semnótyfos)
• Hebrew: חָסוּד m (ẖasúd)
• Hungarian: prűd (hu)
• Icelandic: tepra f, pempía f
• Indonesian: sok suci
• Italian: prude m
• Polish: świętoszek (pl) m, świętoszka f
• Portuguese: puritano (pt) m, puritana f, pudico (pt) m
• Romanian: pudic (ro) m, puritan (ro) m
• Russian: свято́ша (ru) c (svjatóša)
• Spanish: mojigato (es) m, mojigata (es) f
• Swedish: pryd person
• Tagalog: maliyoso f
• Turkish: iffet-füruş, namus düşkünü, namus kumkuması

Further reading

• “prude”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “prude”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Adjective

prude (comparative more prude, superlative most prude)

1. Prudish.

Anagrams

• Dupre, drupe, duper, perdu, pured, red up, red-up

French

Etymology

Back-formation from prudefemme, feminine of prud'homme (“good man”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pʁyd/

• Audio:

  (file)

Adjective

prude (plural prudes)

1. prude

Further reading

• “prude”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpru.de/
• Rhymes: -ude
• Hyphenation: prù‧de

Etymology 1

Derived from French preude femme (“wise woman”).

Adjective

prude (invariable)

1. Of someone who cares excessively about pudor and decency, and easily gets outraged.

Further reading

• prude in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Etymology 2

Verb

prude

1. third-person singular present indicative of prudere

Anagrams

• drupe

Middle English

Noun

prude

1. (South West Midlands, Southern) Alternative form of pryde (“proudness”)

Old French

Adjective

prude

1. feminine singular of pruz