puritan

noun

1. (derogatory, usually)A puritanical person.

   “These new puritans have turned out to be surprisingly unskilled and inexperienced - very different from my generation who invented wife-swapping, orgies and free love in the late Sixties and early Seventies.”

2. A member of a particular Protestant religious sect advocating greater purity and piety.

adj

1. (derogatory, usually)Acting or behaving according to the Puritan morals (e.g. propagating modesty), especially with regard to pleasure, nudity and sex; ascetic.

   “A pietistic protestantism, rigid, self-righteous, unintellectual, obsessed with puritan morality to the point where hypocrisy was its automatic companion, dominated this desolate epoch.”

2. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of puritan.

   “It’s a seedy time of the night and Jacky is telling me about sailors and their needs. A man called P. C. Alexander, an ex-Indian High-Commissioner in London has cleaned up Madras. There’s a very Puritan atmosphere here now, and the seamen are not happy. ‘All ship’s crew very happy with Calcutta. Can bring many girls there. Bombay too – no problem.’ Bombay is apparently the only city in India to license prostitutes.”

   “Chardonnay is very malleable, but once we get the fruit in we actually take a very Puritan approach to it.”

   “I learned to work from my grandfather, who held a very Puritan kind of work ethic.”