prim

This bold diagonal, cut through the prim Quaker street grid, produced a great many awkwardly shaped blocks, including the pointy trapezoid between the Parkway and the Vine Street Expressway that houses Calder Gardens.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2025

Before each performance, the scene is set by a narrator who speaks in a prim, puritanical accent reminiscent of a bygone era.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2024

Not only are viewers watching boldface names eat, they’re also watching them eat foods that are considered distasteful — which goes against the prim and proper image that celebrities are expected to uphold.

From Salon ● Jan. 29, 2024

A portrait of a prim young lady in bright brushstrokes was being sold for $5,190.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 2, 2023

When she talked, it was in the prim and proper voice of someone who understands flower shows and country homes.

From "Bodega Dreams" by Ernesto Quinonez

The brasher yet primmer Adewunmi speaks in a cosmopolitan London accent, while the quieter but more moan-prone Perkins drawls in a slight Tennessee twang.

From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2018

To hear the "pulpit genius," Dr. Joseph Parker, actors, authors, artists and bohemians pressed into City Temple alongside primmer Victorians.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Let me look out," said the second lady, who was, if possible, older and thinner and primmer than the first.

From The Strand Magazine, Volume XXVII, Issue 160, April, 1904 by Various

The ladies of Charles II's reign were a little coarser, a little primmer, a good deal more ignorant than those of our age.

From A Century of English Essays An Anthology Ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the Writers of Our Own Time by Ernest Rhys

"Be the tarnal primmer, Dandy Duffy, but I see it now!" said the Rouser, struck by Bartle's address, and indignant at the idea of having been overreached by him.

From Fardorougha, The Miser The Works of William Carleton, Volume One by William Carleton

And even the primmest of towns will have their mischief-makers.

From Slate ● May 4, 2026

Into an elegant manse atop the white cliffs of England's south coast ventures Deborah Kerr, beautifully coiffed and dressed for a royal weekend, doing her primmest impersonation of a gentlewoman fallen upon difficult days.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Thank you," she said, in her chillest and primmest fashion, as she withdrew from Ruth's embrace.

From Aunt Rachel by David Christie Murray

"Infatuated child!" she said, in her primmest and most fashionable accent.

From Aunt Rachel by David Christie Murray

The house stood well back from the street, in the trimmest and primmest little garden that ever was seen.

From Geoffrey Strong by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

As Pet Marjorie would say, I am primmed up with majestic pride because of the compliments I receive.

From Olivia in India by O. Douglas

Madame primmed and preened herself like a black pigeon, and darted glances out of her black eyes.

From The Lost Girl by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

With other thought, mark also the Abbe Maury: his broad bold face; mouth accurately primmed; full eyes, that ray out intelligence, falsehood,—the sort of sophistry which is astonished you should find it sophistical.

From The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle

He saw the fine thin lips, like a woman's, primmed in satisfaction.

From The Path of the King by John Buchan

Before the pleasant afternoon closed, he had gained permission to call the truant Letty, and she primmed her rosy lips as he taught her to say Will.

From The Chequers Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in a Loafer's Diary by James Runciman

She sat very straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.

From Huntingtower by John Buchan

"I told Ma that she had on bracelets, and Ma said she feared your cousin was a worldly person," retorted Cecy, primming up her lips.

From What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge

Then pulled herself together as the landlady in curled fringe and long grey ulster entered the room, primming long, thin lips.

From The Privet Hedge by J. E. Buckrose

To wind up all, Ellwood, primming up his Mouth, says, "Thou hast found much to tell us, Friend Milton, on Paradise Lost;—now, what hast thou to tell of Paradise Regained?"

From Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary by Anne Manning

His face was dingy, his lips were grey, From primming sparrowbills day by day; As he turned his boot he heard a noise At his garden-end and he thought, "It's boys."

From Reynard the Fox by John Masefield