priggish

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Frank Burns, the priggish Army doctor who was obsessed with nurse “Hot Lips” Houlihan in “MASH,” Duvall specialized in tightly wound tough guys.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 16, 2026

Woolf, like several other characters in “Run,” is based on a real person; Cocker-Norris, whom Oyelowo renders with an amusingly priggish persnickety-ness, is not.

From Washington Post • Sep. 13, 2022

He’s not a priggish bootstrapper but a plucky bon vivant who does his work with a smile, always “on the alert for business.”

From New York Times • Apr. 5, 2022

Once criticized for a sense of rectitude so priggish it began to appear perverse, Starr course-corrected by defending Jeffrey Epstein and then Donald Trump.

From Slate • Aug. 15, 2021

Mantell was a lanky assemblage of shortcomings–he was vain, self-absorbed, priggish, neglectful of his family–but never was there a more devoted amateur paleontologist.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson