Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as pruriency.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being prurient.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality of being prurient.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun feeling morbid sexual desire or a propensity to lewdness

Etymologies

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Examples

  • As we might expect, prurience is to the fore; the report is quite graphic in its descriptions, so please exercise caution because it may be triggering

    Teenager denies killing transgender woman 2008

  • Fox News Porn is a collection of raunchy outtakes from the Fox "News" Network, where hypocritical prigs like Bill O'Reilly revel in prurience while condemning it.

    Boing Boing 2007

  • David Aaronovitch: Our prurience is a disgrace, not the porn films

    Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG: 2009

  • David Aaronovitch: Our prurience is a disgrace, not the porn films

    Tuesday's comment from the papers in... 2009

  • David Aaronovitch: Our prurience is a disgrace, not the porn films

    Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG: 2009

  • Besides this being a showing up of the critics' own prurience which is really just an ingrown Puritanism it's also a display of their literal-mindedness.

    Lance Mannion: 2005

  • Besides this being a showing up of the critics' own prurience which is really just an ingrown Puritanism it's also a display of their literal-mindedness.

    The not so tragic muse 2005

  • But it often leads to a kind of prurience as unpleasant as the obsession with sex of those who have never had sexual experience.

    A Part of Our Time Bergonzi, Bernard 1964

  • Though it may seem far-fetched this sunny Saturday morning, future historians could judge that the wives and girlfriends, so long the objects of prurience and mockery, were indirectly the catalyst of a significant realignment.

    Superinjunctions: The rich man's gag | Editorial 2011

  • The expression on Rajbir's face, what Amrita can see through his beard, is one of gleeful prurience—Rajbir knows that after the number these women are his to do with as he pleases—Rajbir pleases much—he elongates the O in snOwing and blOwing to an uncomfortable degree and Amrita shivers in the dusty snow.

    FISH/SEX excerpt (Pradesh) erik wennermark 2011

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