prude

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.

• enPR: pro͞od, IPA^(key): /pɹuːd/

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• Rhymes: -uːd

prude (plural prudes)

1. A person who is or tries to be excessively proper, especially one who is easily offended by matters of a sexual nature.
   • 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part I, IV [Uniform ed., p. 62]:

     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.

   • 1991, Robert M. Pirsig, Lila:

     If you didn't go for Lila you're some kind of prissy old prude. If you did go for her you were some kind of dirty old man.

• prig
• goody-goody
• puritan
• celibacist
• erotophobe
• antisexualist

• prudery
• prudish

• proud

• “prude”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “prude”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

prude (comparative more prude, superlative most prude)

1. Prudish.

• Dupre, drupe, duper, perdu, pured, red up, red-up

Back-formation from prudefemme, feminine of prud’homme (“good man”).

• IPA^(key): /pʁyd/

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prude (plural prudes)

1. prude

• “prude”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpru.de/
• Rhymes: -ude
• Hyphenation: prù‧de

prude

1. third-person singular present indicative of prudere

• drupe

prude

1. Alternative form of pryde (“proudness”)

prude

1. feminine singular of pruz