prude
/pɹuːd/
prude noun: a person who is or tries to be excessively proper, especially one who is easily offended by matters of a sexual nature.
Noun
prude (plural prudes)
- A person who is or tries to be excessively proper, especially one who is easily offended by matters of a sexual nature.
- He became shy. "I hadn't meant to tell you. It's not quite for a lady." For, like most men who are rather animal, he was intellectually a prude.1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part I, IV [Uniform ed., p. 62]
- If you didn't go for Lila you're some kind of prissy old prude. If you did go for her you were some kind of dirty old man.1991, Robert M. Pirsig, Lila
- Synonyms:
- prig, goody-goody, puritan, celibacist, erotophobe, antisexualist, bluenose, goody two shoes, killjoy, moralist
Adjective
prude (comparative more prude, superlative most prude)
Proper noun capitalized: Prude
Prude (plural Prudes)
- A surname.
prude meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
prude in Tamil
- நடத்தை, கூச்சப்படுபவர்
prude in Bengali
- অতিরিক্ত রক্ষণশীল, শালীনতা প্রকাশকারী ব্যক্তি
prude in Malayalam
- prig, puritan, killjoy
- ആചാരവാൻ, രസംകൊല്ലി, സ്വർഗ്ഗത്തിലെ കട്ടുറുമ്പ്, സദാചാരനിരതൻ, ഭക്തൻ, ഭക്തശിരോമണി
prude in Kannada
- ಗಂಭೀರೆ, ಅತಿವಿನೀತೆ
More languagesFewer languages
- prude in Tagalog
- maliyoso
- prude in Indonesian
- sok suci
Synonyms of prude
- prig
- goody-goody
- puritan
- celibacist
- erotophobe
- antisexualist
- bluenose
- goody two shoes
- killjoy
- moralist
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of prude
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | prudes |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more prude |
| superlative | most prude |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Prudes |
Origin of prude
From French prude, from Old French prude, prode, feminine of prou, prod, prud (“good, excellent, brave”), from Latin prōde. Related to proud but unrelated to prudent.
English surname, probably a variant of Proud.
Words formed from prude
Words that rhyme with prude
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- lewd
- rood
- snood
- Jude
- denude
- extrude
- exude
- feud
- nude
- obtrude
- reclude
- stewed
- subdued
- transclude
- abrood
- delude
- hewed
- intrude
- oud
- pood
- screwed
- seclude
- skewed
- strewed
- thewed
- you'd
- 'tude
- ablude
- abstrude
- accrued
- allude
- blued
- boo'd
- booed
- brewed
- Bude
- chewed
- chud
- clued
- collude
- construed
- cooed
- crewed
- cued
- debuted
- dzud
- fod
- frood
Questions about prude
- What does prude mean?
- Prude means a person who is or tries to be excessively proper, especially one who is easily offended by matters of a sexual nature.
- What is prude in Tamil?
- Prude in Tamil is நடத்தை, கூச்சப்படுபவர். See Prude meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is prude?
- Prude can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce prude?
- Prude is pronounced /pɹuːd/.
- What is the plural of prude?
- The plural of prude is prudes.
Words near prude in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: prude (page history and authors); Prude (page history and authors); prude (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); prude (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); prude (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); prude (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prude.wav.
Cite this entry: “prude.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prude. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.