prurient

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Perhaps more affecting, in a kind of prurient-pathetic way, is the wilting and yet humidly tumescent Humbert Humbert

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Inordinately interested in matters of sex; lascivious.
  2. adjective Characterized by an inordinate interest in sex: prurient thoughts.
  3. adjective Arousing or appealing to an inordinate interest in sex: prurient literature.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples

  • That the discussion and recommendation of checks to over-population after marriage is perfectly lawful, and that there is in the advocacy and recommendations contained in the book 'Fruits of Philosophy' nothing that is prurient or calculated to inflame the passions. 5th. —  Autobiographical Sketches
  • If she do not gravitate too irresistibly towards that class of New-Era people (which includes whatsoever we have of prurient, esurient, morbid, flimsy, and in fact pitiable and unprofitable, and is at a sad discount among men of sense), she may get into good tracks of inquiry and connection here, and be very useful to herself and others. —  The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II
  • Perhaps more affecting, in a kind of prurient-pathetic way, is the wilting and yet humidly tumescent Humbert Humbert —  VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XI No 3
  • So much for the prurient prudes in the Bible Belt and in pockets of California who think that people learn naughty things from books. —  VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIII No 4
  • Or maybe, he thought with self-disguise, he was transfixed for a prurient reason. —  The Witness
 

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Prurient has been looked up 403 times, favorited 3 times, listed 83 times, and commented on 5 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

salacious ·  off-color ·  sniggering ·  indelicate ·  stylistic ·  hard-featured ·  morbid ·  profane ·  ghoulish ·  made-up ·  impure ·  fevered
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin prūriēns, prūrient-, present participle of prūrīre, to yearn for, itch; see preus- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = Portuguese pruriente, from Latin prurien(t-)s, present participle of prurire, itch.
 

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/ˈprurɪənt/
by American Heritage

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