Prissy

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪsi

Origin

1895, either an alteration of precise, or primsissy; first attested in American writer Joel Chandler Harris.

Online Etymology Dictionary

Full definition of prissy

Adjective

1. excessively prim, proper, particular or fussy
• 1949, Raymond Chandler, The Little SisterShe was a small, neat, rather prissy-looking girl with primly smooth brown hair and rimless glasses ...
• 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club Cabin Boyhttp://www.avclub.com/articles/cabin-boy,71269/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.
2. well-mannered, well-behaved

Derived terms

• priss