prig

The Professor, Sonia’s father, is a selfish and pompous prig who hates Vanya as much as Vanya hates him.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2023

Other additions to the story seem designed to make the male characters more odious — Uncle Matthew more of a violent ogre, Fanny’s husband, Alfred, more of a domineering prig.

From New York Times ● Jul. 29, 2021

Bill Clinton and his defenders were accusing an investigator of being a power-mad prig.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 18, 2017

Kelly’s piece painted Clinton as a moralist, a meddler, a prig.

From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2016

“I had nae wish to kill! He was own cousin to the Orkneys! And think ye that the southron prig, him of the white shield, had before refused to ride with him!”

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

“We are all a bunch of prigs in Washington, after all.”

From Washington Post ● Apr. 25, 2018

At the same time the intellectual elite—particularly the Bloomsbury set—took to ridiculing as prigs and bores the Victorian giants who had built up the economic and moral capital which they lived off.

From Economist ● Oct. 5, 2017

How the prigs managed to nab the labels “correct” and “proper” for their particular form of slang is another matter.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 25, 2016

Purists and prigs might recoil, but if they do, then Mr. Barker will probably feel that he has done his job.

From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2013

Compared with Oak and Venn, this precious pair of prigs are seen to have only the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; a righteousness that is of little help in the cruel emergencies of life.

From Essays on Modern Novelists by Phelps, William Lyon

I've seen lassies makkin' themsels sma' for lads often enough, but I never saw ane 'at prigged so muckle wi' her ain brother.

From A Window in Thrums by Barrie, J. M. (James Matthew)

The pocket-book you prigged contained the letters I wanted.

From Jack Sheppard A Romance by Ainsworth, William Harrison

"I might have prigged this box of figs," the damsel said good-naturedly, "and you'd never have turned round."

From Burlesques by Thackeray, William Makepeace

Haven't I prigged for you, and run the risk of being sent to quod for getting rid of your dumps?

From Dorothy's Double Volume I (of 3) by Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)

I prigged it; Simmy here whipped it into pretty Mary's reticule, which she, I suppose, never looked into till the row came; and you claimed it—a regular merry-go-round, eh?

From The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3, June, 1851 by Various

"And instead o' the raging I was prigging for," the soft-hearted maid told her friends, "she gave me a flannel petticoat!"

From Sentimental Tommy The Story of His Boyhood by Barrie, J. M. (James Matthew)

All the boys and girls around, Who go out prigging rags and phials, Know Jemmy Catsnatch!!! well, Who lives in a back slum in the Dials.

From A History of the Cries of London Ancient and Modern by Hindley, Charles

"Yes; but you'd have to move, and if we took an inventory, I think we"d find that Mr. Beeton has been prigging little things out of the rooms here and there.

From The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition by Kipling, Rudyard

A walking morte is one unmarried: a doxe, a dell, and a kynchin morte, are all females; and a kynchen co is a young boy not thoroughly instructed in the art of canting and prigging.

From Microcosmography or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters by Earle, John

Next minute there was me, my very arms prigging wi' him to think better o't, and him standing ready to loup, has knees bent, and not a tremble in them.

From The Little Minister by Barrie, J. M. (James Matthew)