Word.ws English Dictionary

peeververein

peeververein noun: people obsessed with upholding and enforcing the usage of "correct" English; militant prescriptivists.

Noun

peeververein pl (plural only)

  1. (derogatory, neologism, plural, plural-only) People obsessed with upholding and enforcing the usage of "correct" English; militant prescriptivists.
    • The Independent reports that at the society's annual meeting, with an attendance of twenty-two, its chairman, Rhea Williams, announced, "Despite the sending out of a request for nominations for chairman, vice-chairman, administrator, web master, and membership secretary no one came forward to fill...2012 June 5, John E. McIntyre, “Unmourned: The Queen's English Society”, in The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, M.D.: Tribune Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Jun 2021
    • Unfortunately, these self-styled grammar lovers form no phalanx of gladiators defending our language from modern barbarians. They're simply simple linguitard peeververein - to build upon the delightful word coined by The Baltimore Sun's John E McIntyre meaning, in bastard German, "band of peevers"...2013 August 13, Stilgherrian, “'Literally' purists literally belong in the stone age”, in ABC News (Australia), archived from the original on 05 Jul 2022

Examples of peeververein in a sentence

  • But write and the peeververein will descend to bewail your use of the singular "they," though it's not exactly transparently singular here.2017, Kory Stamper, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, →ISBN, page 132:
  • He simultaneously dismisses appeals to historical practice used in defense of the singular "they" yet wields historical use against uptight peeververein, as with the verb "enthuse".2020 April, Jonathan I. Tietz, “On Lawyers and Copy Editors”, in Michigan Law Review, volume 118, number 6, Ann Arbor, M.I.: University of...
  • The word-peevers of the era — the peeververein, to borrow a splendid coinage from John E.2022 February 3, Benjamin Dreyer, “It’s pointless to yearn for a post-pandemic return to normalcy. Or is it normality?”, in The Washington...

Origin of peeververein

Coined by American journalist and copy editor John McIntyre in 2012, from peeve + -er + German Verein (“association, club, society”).

Questions about peeververein

What does peeververein mean?
Peeververein means people obsessed with upholding and enforcing the usage of "correct" English; militant prescriptivists.
How do you use peeververein in a sentence?
But write and the peeververein will descend to bewail your use of the singular "they," though it's not exactly transparently singular here.
What part of speech is peeververein?
Peeververein is a noun.

Words near peeververein in the dictionary

  1. peevedness
  2. peevee
  3. peevees
  4. peever
  5. peevers
  6. peeververein
  7. peevery
  8. peeves
  9. peeving
  10. peevish
  11. peevishly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: peeververein (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.

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