puritanical

English

Alternative forms

• Puritanical

Etymology

From puritanic +‎ -al.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pjʊəɹ.ɪˈtæn.ɪ.kəl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /pjɚ.ɪˈtæn.ɪ.kl̩/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

Adjective

puritanical (comparative more puritanical, superlative most puritanical)

2. Of or pertaining to the Puritans, or to their doctrines and practice.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 192:

     The host proposed divers puritanical fancies—nay, once hinted at a head of Cromwell himself; but the hostess overruled all these proposals, and stood firm by the Sun.

3. Precise in observance of legal or religious requirements; strict; overscrupulous; rigid (often used by way of reproach or contempt).
   • 1901 August – 1902 April, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “First Report of Dr. Watson”, in The Hound of the Baskervilles: Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, London: George Newnes, […], published 1902, →OCLC, page 168:

     Mrs. Barrymore is of interest to me. She is a heavy, solid person, very limited, intensely respectable, and inclined to be puritanical. You could hardly conceive a less emotional subject. Yet I have told you how, on the first night here, I heard her sobbing bitterly, and since then I have more than once observed traces of tears upon her face. Some deep sorrow gnaws ever at her heart. Sometimes I wonder if she has a guilty memory which haunts her, and sometimes I suspect Barrymore of being a domestic tyrant.

   • 1910, James George Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, volume 1, page xiv:

     Exogamy […] has few or none of the quaint superstitions which lend a certain picturesque charm to totemism. It is, so to say, a stern Puritanical institution. Its rigid logic, its complex rules, its elaborate terminology, its labyrinthine systems of relationship, it presents an aspect somewhat hard and repellant.

   • 2014 May 21, Rey Junco, “What’s the big deal about sexting?”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     American society has a double standard when it comes to sexuality. We have a puritanical taboo against talking about sexuality directly, yet we are fine with the sexual images that pervade television and glossy magazines.

Derived terms

• antipuritanical
• neopuritanical
• puritanically
• puritanicalness
• unpuritanical

Translations

of or pertaining to the Puritans

• Galician: puritano
• German: puritanisch (de)
• Polish: purytański (pl)
• Russian: пурита́нский (ru) (puritánskij)

precise in observance of legal or religious requirements

• Galician: puritano, meticuloso (gl)
• Polish: purytański (pl)
• Russian: пурита́нский (ru) (puritánskij), стро́гий (ru) (strógij)

Noun

puritanical (plural puritanicals)

1. One who holds puritanical attitudes.

Anagrams

• unpiratical