Puritan Meaning
/ˈpjʊə.ɹɪ.tən/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA puritanical person.
adjActing or behaving according to the Puritan morals (e.g. propagating modesty), especially with regard to pleasure, nudity and sex; ascetic.
Sentence Examples
Tom is a puritan.
Jerome won't have sex with you, he's a total puritan.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The strict ____ believed that all forms of entertainment, like dancing and theater, were sinful.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ settlers of New England lived by strict religious codes and rejected what they saw as moral excess.
Word Origin & History
See Puritan.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 2016 August 5, Janet Street-Porter, “Anxious young people may be having less sex than ever before, but we baby boomers are still obsessed with it”, in The Independent:
"A pietistic protestantism, rigid, self-righteous, unintellectual, obsessed with puritan morality to the point where hypocrisy was its automatic companion, dominated this desolate epoch."
— 1962, Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution. 1789-1848, page 187:
"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."
— 1989, Michael Palin, Around the World in 80 Days, BBC Books, →ISBN, page 111:
"Chardonnay is very malleable, but once we get the fruit in we actually take a very Puritan approach to it."
— 2009, Melissa Stackhouse, “Conversations with Bigwigs: Melissa Stackhouse”, in Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, Drink This: Wine Made Simple, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, →ISBN, chapter 5 (Chardonnay: Chic and Changeable), page 121:
"I learned to work from my grandfather, who held a very Puritan kind of work ethic."
— 2019, Susan L. Popham, “Teaching Editing through a Feminist Theoretical Lens”, in Suzan Flanagan, Michael J. Albers, editors, Editing in the Modern Classroom, Routledge, →ISBN:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The strict ____ believed that all forms of entertainment, like dancing and theater, were sinful.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ settlers of New England lived by strict religious codes and rejected what they saw as moral excess.