Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.
- n. Chiefly British A petty thief or pickpocket.
- n. Archaic A conceited dandy; a fop.
- v. Chiefly British To steal or pilfer.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To filch or steal.
- To cheapen; haggle about.
- To plead hard; haggle.
- n. A thief.
- n. A conceited, narrow-minded, pragmatical person; a dull, precise person.
- n. A coxcomb; a dandy.
- To dress up; adorn; prink. Compare prick, 9.
- To ride.
- n. A small pitcher.
- n. A small brass skillet.
Wiktionary
- n. A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.
- n. UK A petty thief or pickpocket
- n. archaic A conceited dandy; a fop.
- v. Scotland To haggle or argue over price.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. Prov. Eng. & Scot. To haggle about the price of a commodity; to bargain hard.
- v. Scot. To cheapen.
- v. Cant To filch or steal.
- n. A pert, conceited, pragmatical fellow.
- n. Cant A thief; a filcher.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a person regarded as arrogant and annoying
Etymologies
- Of unknown origin. (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Your true prig is always self-conscious, but Edward was not at all self-conscious.”
“And a plain prig my nephew Edward," continued the old gentleman.”
“Lord E. 's "prig" -- see Jonathan Wild for the definition of”
“He does not hesitate to make his champion a prig, which is exactly what a youth so idolised by his family would be likely to become.”
“A prig is a handsome fellow born to create disturbance among the ladies.”
Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 of Popular Literature and Science
“When, however, I thought over what she had said I was not so pleased, for I began to see that if the summer was to be splendid and I was not to be called a prig I must give up the idea of taking her to the”
“Now a prig is a pert fellow who gives himself airs of superior wisdom.”
“A prig is a tedious individual who, having made a discovery, is so impressed by his discovery that he is capable of being gravely displeased because the entire world is not also impressed by it.”
“A prig is a pompous fool who has gone out for a ceremonial walk, and without knowing it has lost an important part of his attire, namely, his sense of humour.”
“That he was what we should nowadays call a prig we know, and also that he possessed his father's, Montalvo's, readiness of speech without his father's sense of humour.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘prig’.
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Bad Options
words for those who commit particular crimes: i.e., bank robber, arsonist, etc.
liar, cheat, traitor, arsonist, felon, braggard, thief, profiteer, impostor, phony, fraud, culprit and 212 more...
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funny & derogatory
WARNING: VERY EXPLICIT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
funny derogatory names, quotes, phrases.
( open list, randomness, ad hom, ad hominem )
also see:
buttfucking quitter, dirty sanchez, donkey punch, falcon punch, assbadger, unicorn turd, assclown, fudgenut, quackery, friggin homo, buttmuncher, jackwagon and 272 more... -
WordMasters Blue Division Set 2
verge, taper, lucrative, prig, ransack, wizened, martinet, flucuate, verbose, enigma, subdue, fertile and 12 more...
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Short
the, a, spunk, curt, do, pick, fop, sip, dip, map, nag, prig and 2 more...
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barrys favs...
These are the words which are used in a normal conversation...
ambivert, precarious, intriguing, intricacy, pivotal, cognizance, hindsight, back out, cliche, niche, chicane, trivial and 7 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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What Do You Mean ?
U Gotta Know These.......
falter, ruddy, flounder, pallid, fumble, founder, labile, titular, tacit, pragmatic, fatalism, jaded and 112 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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andrew.simone's Words
elan, prestidigitation, flummoxed, autochthonous, missive, hoi polloi, schadenfreude, frou-frou, oolong, burleseque, ontic, etymology and 165 more...
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A Swell Mob
Kinds of thieves.
thief, sneak thief, burglar, cat burglar, picklock, puggard, robber, grave robber, piller, porch climber, prowler, larcenist and 133 more...
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And another
retrocausality, brusque, gainsay, cheerio, jaundiced, chamois, caw, craw, fudge, bubbler, shebang, bolo and 244 more...
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vocabulary
verisimilitude, pendulate, moxie, whimper, nary, stevedore, hubris, prodigious, super-injunction, injunction, lashings, fennel and 202 more...
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Words I will probably never use
décolleté, pendragon, amerce, viviparous, dragoon, brigand, outlaw, outlawry, lugubrious, boor, contretemps, decrepit and 151 more...
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Gil Blas
Interesting words and usages from Smollett's 1749 translation of Lesage's L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane
reck, durance, rhodomontade, hangdog, trap, lustre, pin, boggle, dandle, birthday suit, colic, gripes and 238 more...
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justin's Words
braii, boerewors, lekker, viva, pap, lipodystrophy, lacticacidosis, sharp, chakalaka, defaulter, eish, oof and 256 more...
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ifjuly's list
favorite words. some are made up injokes between me and my husband or family.
skein, zaftig, july, bed, orifice, aesthete, ink, parce-que, desormais, cake, pusillanimous, pulse and 531 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for prig.
RevBrently From p. 83 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete." Sep 29, 2012
yarb He is a young barrister, with more of the prig than the lawyer about him.
- Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 7 ch. 13 Oct 2, 2008