Etymology 1895, either an alteration of precise, blend of prim + sissy, or a blend of prim + fussy; first attested in a work of American writer Joel Chandler Harris.
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Colloquial Prim and fussy; too precise; overparticular.
She was a small, neat, rather prissy-looking girl with primly smooth brown hair and rimless glasses […]1949, Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister:
As Nathanial Mayweather, heir to the Mayweather Hotel fortune, Elliott doesn’t disdain the hoi polloi so much as he considers everyone, even the faculty and headmaster at the prissiest private school in existence, to be part of it.2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “Cabin Boy”, in AV Club:
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European languages like English are just prissier about getting that pronoun in there.2014, John H. McWhorter, The Language Hoax:
I refused to wear this properly as it looked a bit prissy, so I butchly slung it over one shoulder.1983, Bill Oddie, Gone Birding, London: Methuen, page 51:
Mom was always pushing her only daughter to become some kind of prissy feminine beauty.1994, H W Wilson, Joni Richards Bodart, Booktalking the Award Winners - Volume 3, page 31:
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A pink can held shaving gel with a prissy, feminine smell.2002, Eileen Wilks, The Loner and the Lady, page 179:
Her clothes were not at all unusual or fashionable, a plain slate-blue dress and a magenta cardigan sweater with a somewhat prissy line of pearl buttons down the front.2004, Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel:
A healthy trepidation about microbes, lice and the like is the key to a happy prissy lifestyle.2012, Simon Doonan, Gay Men Don't Get Fat:
“Boots won't fit,” the man said, “and the hat's prissy.2012, Sheldon Russell, Dreams to Dust:
As women post en masse over the course of the day and long into the night, the mood changes: The daylight crowd tends to be prissier; the night crowd rowdier (and drunker); the late-night crowd surrealistic and unpredictable, made up of the extremely sleep deprived, from mothers of newborns to insomniacs in the midst of a divorce.2007, Steven Levy, The Best of Technology Writing 2007, page 48:
You drive like one of those prissy ladies at lunch who won't take the last cookie in case somebody else wants it.2010, J. D. Robb, Visions In Death, page 19:
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I may – I forget now – have suffixed it slightly; with a well-rounded 'Stuff you!' or 'But my car, you bastard!'. But then again, surely not. This was my boss, after all. More likely I would have said something more prissy, like 'Oh, really It may be only a car to you,' etc., before dissolving, which was what I actually did, into a flurry of impotent fury and tears.2014, Lynne Barrett-Lee, One Day Someday:
Etymology 1895, either an alteration of precise, blend of prim + sissy, or a blend of prim + fussy; first attested in a work of American writer Joel Chandler Harris.
1970-1975, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure I really like Beau. He sure enjoys being admired & lusted over. He just lays back like a king & enjoys. What a prissy!