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

"The album is not for any pearl clutchers," she told CBS News, with reference to prim, prudish or easily offended people.

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2025

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

Straight-backed, prim Mary set up a modest but respectable home near the city center, a part of town where blacks and whites lived peaceably together.

From "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919" by Claire Hartfield

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

Now my Hector, here, is a dog of education after his fashion, and, though the meanest primmer in the settlements would puzzle his information, you could not cheat the hound in a matter like this.

From The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper

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

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

"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

It would have been impossible for the primmest, the sourest, or the most sensible creature in the world to say that it wasn't a pretty sight.

From Kitty's Class Day and Other Stories by Louisa May Alcott

Mrs. Davis asked herself, and then primmed up her unbeautiful mouth.

From Rainbow Valley by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

His lips were primmed so close that his mouth was hardly discernible, and his dark deep eye flashed gleams of holy indignation on the godless set, but particularly on his brother.

From The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

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

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

From Geoffrey Strong by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

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 Louisa May Alcott

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

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

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

"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