Prude

//pɹuːd// adj, name, noun

adj, name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who is or tries to be excessively proper, especially one who is easily offended by matters of a sexual nature.

    "He became shy. "I hadn't meant to tell you. It's not quite for a lady." For, like most men who are rather animal, he was intellectually a prude."

  2. 2
    a person excessively concerned about propriety and decorum wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Prudish.
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
puritanantisexualistantisexualistbluenosecelibacistcelibacist

Example

More examples

"He became shy. "I hadn't meant to tell you. It's not quite for a lady." For, like most men who are rather animal, he was intellectually a prude."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From French prude, from Old French prude, prode, feminine of prou, prod, prud (“good, excellent, brave”), from Latin prōde. Related to proud but unrelated to prudent.

Etymology 2

English surname, probably a variant of Proud.

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