prissy
adjective
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L339525 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈpɹɪsi/
adj
Etymology: 1895, either an alteration of precise, blend of prim + sissy, or a blend of prim + fussy; first attested in a work of American writer Joel Chandler Harris.
- Prim and fussy; too precise; overparticular.
“She was a small, neat, rather prissy-looking girl with primly smooth brown hair and rimless glasses […]”
“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.”
- Lacking masculine vigor; sissified; effeminate.
“I refused to wear this properly as it looked a bit prissy, so I butchly slung it over one shoulder.”
“Mom was always pushing her only daughter to become some kind of prissy feminine beauty.”
- Well-mannered; well-behaved.
“As women post en masse over the course of the day and long into the night, the mood changes: The daylight crowd tends to be prissier; the night crowd rowdier (and drunker); the late-night crowd surrealistic and unpredictable, made up of the extremely sleep deprived, from mothers of newborns to insomniacs in the midst of a divorce.”
“You drive like one of those prissy ladies at lunch who won't take the last cookie in case somebody else wants it.”
name
Etymology: Etymology tree English Priscilla English -y English Prissy From Priscilla + -y.
- A diminutive of the female given name Priscilla.
noun
Etymology: 1895, either an alteration of precise, blend of prim + sissy, or a blend of prim + fussy; first attested in a work of American writer Joel Chandler Harris.
- A person who is prissy.
“1970-1975, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure I really like Beau. He sure enjoys being admired & lusted over. He just lays back like a king & enjoys. What a prissy!”