Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Characterized by or displaying a concern with morality.
- adjective Given to making moral judgments, especially in a self-righteous or judgmental manner.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Inculcating morality; didactic: as, moralistic poets.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective narrowly and conventionally moral; -- of people.
- adjective disposed to moralize{2}; -- of people.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Characteristic of or relating to a
narrow-minded concern of themorals of others; self-righteous
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective narrowly and conventionally moral
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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One in particular who referred to a 'moralistic' view as being 'blinkered'.
BBC Ouch Blog BBC Sport 2011
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Petition: Shame on the so called moralistic people from the Sri Ram sena!
rediff.com 2009
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Reason article in 1983, to examine how certain types of government regulations come into being, particularly what I would call moralistic regulation.
Positive Liberty 2008
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The president-elect of the Christian Coalition announced Tuesday that he was stepping down, saying that the religious group appeared to balk at his proposals to focus on environmental and anti-poverty issues rather than on purely "moralistic" issues such as abortion.
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Any other director, saddled with such a self-evidently mediocre script, would simply churn out the kind of moralistic low-budget gangster pieces that thrived on the lower half of double-bills in the 40s.
T-Men Ed Howard 2008
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Researchers have found evidence of self-protective retaliation, or revenge, and third-party, or "moralistic," punishment in many of nature's diverse niches.
Michael E. McCullough: The Revenge Instinct and the Bailout Package 2008
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Make all the 'moralistic' complaints you want about how alcohol and drugs are bad for society; you fly in the face of evidence that the cure is indeed worse than the disease.
Mommy Pact Steven Barnes 2008
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Any other director, saddled with such a self-evidently mediocre script, would simply churn out the kind of moralistic low-budget gangster pieces that thrived on the lower half of double-bills in the 40s.
Archive 2008-11-01 Ed Howard 2008
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What arose, in its place, is a kind of moralistic, paternalistic, reactionary culture in which undercover police arrest people for being drunk not for fighting or lewdness or driving drunk but simply for being drunk while sitting at the bar.
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Sounds like the 'moralistic' tactic failed, and badly so.
"Quite damaging, wide-reaching, nefarious and mean-spirited." Ann Althouse 2006
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