Whitehousian

English

Etymology

Whitehouse +‎ -ian; named after Mary Whitehouse (1910–2001), English activist who stridently opposed social liberalism and the permissiveness of the mainstream media.

Adjective

Whitehousian (comparative more Whitehousian, superlative most Whitehousian)

1. Prudish; morally censorious.
   • 1972, The Listener, volume 87, page 279:

     His assumption of the Whitehousian justification for censorship (and the use of 'the middle-aged' here is thin cover indeed for the first person singular) — to wit, that these American-style papers may corrupt their children, damage community relations, reduce British cities to New York level, or pollute the public mind.

   • 1986, Bernard Levin, In These Times, page 15:

     Exactly the same technique may still be seen whenever we come upon 'f—' or 'f***' in print; every reader supplies the missing 'uck', but the Whitehousian proprieties are observed.

   • 2012, Lesley A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880, page 164:

     […] for those disenchanted with sexual liberation, a basis for sexual caution without retreat into Whitehousian moral orthodoxy.

   • 2017, Steven J. Sutcliffe, Religion: Empirical Studies:

     These range from naive and strident Whitehousian tirades against the supposedly corrosive effects of on screen sex, violence and profanity, to the much more sophisticated arguments of, say, William Fore (1987) or Neil Postman (1987).