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Webster 1913 Edition


Puritanical

{

Puˊri-tan′ic

,

Puˊri-tan′ic-al

, }
Adj.
1.
Of or pertaining to the Puritans, or to their doctrines and practice.
2.
Precise in observance of legal or religious requirements; strict; overscrupulous; rigid; – often used by way of reproach or contempt.
Paritanical
circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded.
Macaulay.
He had all the
puritanic
traits, both good and evil.
Hawthorne.

Definition 2024


puritanical

puritanical

English

Adjective

puritanical (comparative more puritanical, superlative most puritanical)

  1. Of or pertaining to the Puritans, or to their doctrines and practice.
  2. Precise in observance of legal or religious requirements; strict; overscrupulous; rigid; often used by way of reproach or contempt.

Quotations

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.
A. Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Translations

Noun

puritanical (plural puritanicals)

  1. One who holds puritanical attitudes.