prissy

See also: Prissy

English

Etymology

1895, either an alteration of precise, or blend of prim +‎ fussy; first attested in American writer Joel Chandler Harris.[1]

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈpɹɪsi/
  • Rhymes: -ɪsi

Adjective

prissy (comparative prissier, superlative prissiest)

  1. excessively prim, proper, particular or fussy
    • 1949, Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
      She was a small, neat, rather prissy-looking girl with primly smooth brown hair and rimless glasses […]
    • 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club Cabin Boy
      As Nathanial Mayweather, heir to the Mayweather Hotel fortune, Elliott doesn’t disdain the hoi polloi so much as he considers everyone, even the faculty and headmaster at the prissiest private school in existence, to be part of it.
  2. well-mannered, well-behaved

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

prissy (plural prissies)

  1. A person who is excessively prim, proper, particular or fussy.

References
  1. “prissy” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
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