Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Inordinately interested in matters of sex; lascivious.
- adj. Characterized by an inordinate interest in sex: prurient thoughts.
- adj. Arousing or appealing to an inordinate interest in sex: prurient literature.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Itching; having an eager desire or longing for something.
- Inclined to lascivious thought; of an unclean habit of mind; sensual.
Wiktionary
- adj. Uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious anxiety or propensity; lustful.
- adj. Arousing or appealing to sexual desire.
- adj. Curious, especially inappropriately so.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious curiosity or propensity; lustful.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. characterized by lust
Etymologies
- From Latin prūriēns, present participle of prūriō ("itch") (Wiktionary)
- Latin prūriēns, prūrient-, present participle of prūrīre, to yearn for, itch; see preus- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I have watched you and your crew, how you preach up selfish ambition for divine charity and call prurient longings celestial love, while you blaspheme that very marriage from whose mysteries you borrow all your cant.”
“Odd Iain that I have not heard the word "prurient" in many months yet both you and David Cameron use it on the same day about the same subject.”
“Here's my answer, and please don't be offended if I read some kind of prurient interest into your query.”
“There is nothing "prurient" about his enthusiastic interest; far from it, Di Filippo deals with such activities with warm good humor, engaging prose, and, when the story dictates, with love.”
“Berlusconi's amoral business practices can never translate into financial success on a national scale, and his sexual ethics will only promote the kind of prurient, hypocritical society that Murdoch would appreciate.”
“(An interesting aside for those who enjoy etymology: the word "prurient" is derived from the same root as pruritus - it just refers to a different sort of "itch.")”
“First of all, Tennessee is remarkably lacking in any kind of prurient accommodations along its interstate, and secondly, on the first trip, we stopped and ate at places that served cold beer and roasted goat, and on the second trip we stopped to eat at places that didn't serve black people.”
“Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs "prurient" and "reprehensible," Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘prurient’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pustule, purulence, pushful, purser, purpureal, putative, purpure, purpresture, purloin, purline, purlieu, purlicue and 1766 more...
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Used
halcyon, ineluctable, inspissated, incarnadine, askance, demur, saltation, requisite, effusive, specious, liminality, indomitable and 114 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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perfectly plosive p's
positively p's, please!
penultimate, perdurable, proscenium, pysmatic, petaliferous, pogoniasis, pyx, palimpsest, pareidolia, perspicuous, pauciloquy, pococurante and 14 more...
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the lascivious
orgiastic, nymph, breathless, writhe, calypso, Medusa, virago, sapphic, catamite, bisou, buss, succubus and 48 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1908 more...
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Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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Useful
parkour, diegetic, callipygian, dasypygal, hypnagogic, hypnopompic, antejentacular, postprandial, perspicuity, perspicacity, föhn, traceur and 115 more...
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List Erine
cool mint antiseptic
shalom, cattywampus, bourgeoisie, aerophile, traverse, grotto, epicurean, ex cathedra, nautilus, epitaph, lathe, continuum and 753 more...
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My Revised GRE Preparation List
Words from the new GRE : This list consists mostly of words from the book Magoosh-GRE-vocab-ebook, which is one of the best vocab materials available, especially if you have started preparing one ...
mulct, dupe, pittance, stipend, defray, cupidity, avarice, prodigal, profligate, affluent, insolvent, penurious and 533 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for prurient.
Noelle Knight "I didn't believe for a minute Bill was only concerned with my safety, but I didn't want to believe jealousy brought him to my window, or some kind of prurient curiosity."-Dead as a Doornail, by Charlaine Harris May 18, 2011
Prolagus TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.
(David Foster Wallace) Jun 25, 2008
seanahan That's a bizarre title. Oct 30, 2007
abiohphobia it's from a poem entitled 'bubble baths and crystal meth' Oct 29, 2007
seanahan That's a bizarre quote. Oct 27, 2007
abiohphobia "...at times the shock presents as an imploding clock -
a Dali-esque reminder that if we invented Time (and
hoo! we did) we could invent alternatives far more sublime -
and truer to the prurient experience of ogling Eternity:
close enough for us to sense its meat." Oct 27, 2007