prim

Early in her career, Swift had a reputation for being prim and proper.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2025

Not only are viewers watching boldface names eat, they’re also watching them eat foods that are considered distasteful — which goes against the prim and proper image that celebrities are expected to uphold.

From Salon ● Jan. 29, 2024

It is also, at the risk of sounding prim, worth noting how unusual it is for the Treasury to be teasing quite so much around tax cuts just before a big statement like this.

From BBC ● Nov. 18, 2023

A portrait of a prim young lady in bright brushstrokes was being sold for $5,190.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 2, 2023

When she talked, it was in the prim and proper voice of someone who understands flower shows and country homes.

From "Bodega Dreams" by Ernesto Quinonez

The brasher yet primmer Adewunmi speaks in a cosmopolitan London accent, while the quieter but more moan-prone Perkins drawls in a slight Tennessee twang.

From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2018

To hear the "pulpit genius," Dr. Joseph Parker, actors, authors, artists and bohemians pressed into City Temple alongside primmer Victorians.

From Time Magazine Archive

The ladies of Charles II's reign were a little coarser, a little primmer, a good deal more ignorant than those of our age.

From A Century of English Essays An Anthology Ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the Writers of Our Own Time by Ernest Rhys

Occasionally the twins, in state, visited Dawes Road, where Henry's mother was a little stouter and Aunt Annie a little thinner and a little primmer, but where nothing else was changed.

From A Great Man A Frolic by Arnold Bennett

Mrs. Ratcliffe's pose grew perceptibly primmer as he proceeded, and he recognized that any confidence she might have had in him was being severely shaken.

From Long Odds by Harold Bindloss

And even the primmest of towns will have their mischief-makers.

From Slate ● May 4, 2026

Into an elegant manse atop the white cliffs of England's south coast ventures Deborah Kerr, beautifully coiffed and dressed for a royal weekend, doing her primmest impersonation of a gentlewoman fallen upon difficult days.

From Time Magazine Archive

And, somehow, all this has not seemed to make the faintest difference to her clientèle, not even to the primmest of the English.

From Grey Roses by Henry Harland

The purser's steward, primmest of Methodists, who was said to pass his time in action converting the cook, came tripping out of the galley, a black-jack of boiling water in his hand.

From The Gentleman A Romance of the Sea by Alfred Ollivant

I took the liberty of going up to tell the young ladies and Mrs. Brough, when Master Peterkin first returned,' said James in his very politest and primmest tone.

From Peterkin by H. R. (Harold Robert) Millar

The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her room with her basket of books on her arm and hip and her lips primmed up into a line of determination.

From Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

Her saffron hue, Her thinnish lips, close primmed as they were sewn Up by a milliner, and made water-proof, To guard the fount of wisdom that's within.

From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 495, June 25, 1831 by Various

Madame primmed and preened herself like a black pigeon, and darted glances out of her black eyes.

From The Lost Girl by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

With other thought, mark also the Abbe Maury: his broad bold face; mouth accurately primmed; full eyes, that ray out intelligence, falsehood,—the sort of sophistry which is astonished you should find it sophistical.

From The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle

His lips were primmed so close that his mouth was hardly discernible, and his dark deep eye flashed gleams of holy indignation on the godless set, but particularly on his brother.

From The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

His face was dingy, his lips were grey, From primming sparrowbills day by day; As he turned his boot he heard a noise At his garden-end and he thought, "It's boys."

From Reynard the Fox by John Masefield

Then pulled herself together as the landlady in curled fringe and long grey ulster entered the room, primming long, thin lips.

From The Privet Hedge by J. E. Buckrose

She sat very straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.

From Huntingtower by John Buchan

To wind up all, Ellwood, primming up his Mouth, says, "Thou hast found much to tell us, Friend Milton, on Paradise Lost;—now, what hast thou to tell of Paradise Regained?"

From Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary by Anne Manning

"I told Ma that she had on bracelets, and Ma said she feared your cousin was a worldly person," retorted Cecy, primming up her lips.

From What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge