prim

Everything is prim, but the picture’s mood is as weirdly glum as it is exuberant.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025

Miss Higgins, played by Georgie Glen, is the prim surgery receptionist with a poignant family backstory, which revealed her hidden strengths.

From BBC ● Dec. 26, 2024

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

“Shame on you!” he scolded severely, breathing virtuous fire down and upward into his rusty mustache through his billowing nostrils and prim lips.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

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

Occasionally the twins, in state, visited Dawes Road, where Henry's mother was a little stouter and Aunt Annie a little thinner and a little primmer, but where nothing else was changed.

From A Great Man A Frolic by Bennett, Arnold

Mrs. Ratcliffe's pose grew perceptibly primmer as he proceeded, and he recognized that any confidence she might have had in him was being severely shaken.

From Long Odds by Bindloss, Harold

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

He gave her the flower—she gave him a kiss— His suit she had long been scorning; But you never can tell what the primmest miss Will do of a bright spring morning.

From The Cornflower, and Other Poems by Blewett, Jean

He styled Clare, who talked Baedeker to him in her primmest and most precocious way, Miss Guest; and once at least during the evening he dubbed me plain Bab.

From Laid up in Lavender by Weyman, Stanley J.

She was a comely, motherly woman, dressed in the primmest fashion in vogue twenty years before, in England, among the class to which she belonged.

From Curious, if True Strange Tales by Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn

The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her room with her basket of books on her arm and hip and her lips primmed up into a line of determination.

From Anne of Green Gables by Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud)

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

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

Her saffron hue, Her thinnish lips, close primmed as they were sewn Up by a milliner, and made water-proof, To guard the fount of wisdom that's within.

From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 495, June 25, 1831 by Various

Jo understood why Laurie "primmed up his mouth" when speaking of Kate, for that young lady had a stand-off-don't-touch-me air, which contrasted strongly with the free and easy demeanor of the other girls.

From Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Alcott, Louisa May

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

From Olivia in India by Douglas, O.

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 Buchan, John

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 Masefield, John

"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 Coolidge, Susan

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 Buckrose, J. E.

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 Manning, Anne