pearl-clutching
pearl-clutching adjective: prim, prudish, or easily offended. Also the alternative form of pearl clutching.
Adjective
pearl-clutching (comparative more pearl-clutching, superlative most pearl-clutching)
- Prim, prudish, or easily offended.
- When John Kerry “outed” Mary Cheney in a 2004 presidential debate, it was already well known that Mary Cheney was a lesbian. You can't out the already out, no matter what pearl-clutching pundits would have you believe.2007, Amanda Marcotte, It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, Seal Press, →ISBN, page 141
- Even the biggest doe-eyed, pearl-clutching Etsy muffin has to find some way to make it okay to be negative, because we have no choice.2010, April Winchell, Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF, Villard Books, →ISBN, page 131
- Synonyms:
- pearl-clutchy
Also used as
pearl-clutching is also the alternative form of pearl clutching.
Synonyms of pearl-clutching
Forms of pearl-clutching
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more pearl-clutching |
| superlative | most pearl-clutching |
| Noun | |
| plural | pearl-clutchings |
Origin of pearl-clutching
From the image of a genteel woman clutching her pearl necklace in shock.
Questions about pearl-clutching
- What does pearl-clutching mean?
- Pearl-clutching means prim, prudish, or easily offended.
- What part of speech is pearl-clutching?
- Pearl-clutching is an adjective.
Words near pearl-clutching in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pearl-clutching (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg.
Cite this entry: “pearl-clutching.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pearl-clutching. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.