puritanical

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.

The setting is still a Swiss alpine hamlet, but the villagers are all members of some puritanical sect and its sleepwalking heroine, Amina, has longings that transcend its limits.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 8, 2025

The Jesus Army church recruited thousands of people to live in close-knit, puritanical communities in Northamptonshire, London and the Midlands.

From BBC • Jul. 28, 2025

Then there's the "hustle culture" guys, who instead insist that puritanical self-deprivation is the key to masculinity: strict diets, elaborate workouts, overtime schedules that leave no time for a social life.

From Salon • Apr. 9, 2025

This puritanical rhetoric is amplified for parents, and mothers in particular bear the weight of judgment when they turn to store-bought baby food rather than spending endless hours pureeing vegetables on a Sunday afternoon.

From Slate • Jul. 18, 2023

Other hobgoblins were the brainchildren of self-proclaimed experts who cooked up idiosyncratic theories of how language ought to behave, usually with a puritanical undercurrent in which people’s natural inclinations must be a form of dissoluteness.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker