prissensitive

Prissensitive is an adjective used in contemporary online and colloquial discourse to describe a person who is unusually sensitive to issues of propriety, decorum, or what is perceived as moral offense. A prissensitive individual typically reacts strongly to content, remarks, or situations that others consider merely rude, inoffensive, or within accepted boundaries.

Etymology and usage notes: The term blends priss (short for prissy, a pejorative for overproper behavior) with sensitive, signaling heightened emotional reactivity to norms and standards. It has appeared mainly in informal writing and social media since the late 2010s and is often written without a hyphen, though priss-sensitive or priss-sensitive is also encountered.

Usage: Prissensitive is used to label people or responses that appear to police tone, decorum, or appropriateness; it can describe reactions to jokes, language, or imagery that seem off-color or provocative. The term is typically humorous or pejorative rather than clinical and is not common in formal discourse.

Examples and variants: Examples include sentences like "The thread devolved into prissensitive debate as soon as the off-color joke appeared" or "Some readers found the article prissensitive, others said it was merely cautious." Variants include the noun prissensitivity and the adverb prissensitively; hyphenation varies.

See also: oversensitivity, moralism, pearl-clutching. These related terms describe attitudes toward propriety and perceived offense, though they differ in nuance and formality from prissensitive.