prim

Early in her career, Swift had a reputation for being prim and proper.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 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

Scheibert, the beardless Prussian, moody, prim, was dressed all in white, white coat, floppy white hat, the inevitable glittering monocle.

From "The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War" by Michael Shaara

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

She was sewing as for dear life, and her face was primmer and colder than ever.

From Chronicles of Avonlea by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

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

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 Harold Bindloss

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

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 Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

She flushed angrily, and her reply was in her primmest voice.

From The Children of Wilton Chase by L. T. Meade

You founded a whist-club in Trinity, the primmest college of all.

From A Woman-Hater by Charles Reade

The Ladies' Society fluttered at sight of him, and primmed itself, and shook out its skirts.

From Geoffrey Strong by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

She just primmed up her lips very determinedly, picked up the silk dress, and carried it to her room.

From Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

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 L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

Her arms were folded, her mouth primmed into an expression of respect, mingled with obstinacy, her whole mind apparently bent up to the solemn interview.

From Old Mortality, Volume 1. by Sir Walter Scott

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

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

"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

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

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

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