Comstockery

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Censorship of literature and performances because of especially broad definitions of obscenity or immorality. US, uncountable

    "1905, George Bernard Shaw, letter, New York Times, Sept. 26, 1905, Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States."

  2. 2
    Alternative form of comstockery. alt-of, alternative, uncountable
  3. 3
    censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
comstockism

Example

More examples

"1905, George Bernard Shaw, letter, New York Times, Sept. 26, 1905, Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States."

Etymology

Named after Anthony Comstock (1844–1915) (and the Comstock laws which he propagated) + -ery, coined in an editorial in The New York Times in 1895 and famously adopted by George Bernard Shaw in 1905.

More for "comstockery"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.