"pearl-clutching" meaning in English

See pearl-clutching in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg [Australia] Forms: more pearl-clutching [comparative], most pearl-clutching [superlative]
Etymology: From the image of a genteel woman clutching her pearl necklace in shock. Head templates: {{en-adj|head=pearl-clutching}} pearl-clutching (comparative more pearl-clutching, superlative most pearl-clutching)
  1. (idiomatic, derogatory) Prim, prudish, or easily offended. Tags: derogatory, idiomatic Synonyms: pearl-clutchy Related terms: pearl-clutcher, clutch one's pearls
    Sense id: en-pearl-clutching-en-adj-r79J17~I Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for pearl-clutching meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the image of a genteel woman clutching her pearl necklace in shock.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more pearl-clutching",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most pearl-clutching",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "pearl-clutching"
      },
      "expansion": "pearl-clutching (comparative more pearl-clutching, superlative most pearl-clutching)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2007, Amanda Marcotte, It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, Seal Press, page 141",
          "text": "When John Kerry “outed” Mary Cheney in a 2004 presidential debate, it was already well known that Mary Cheney was a lesbian. You can't out the already out, no matter what pearl-clutching pundits would have you believe.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, April Winchell, Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF, Villard Books, page 131",
          "text": "Even the biggest doe-eyed, pearl-clutching Etsy muffin has to find some way to make it okay to be negative, because we have no choice.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Jeff Smith, Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, editors, The Best American Comics 2013, Houghton Mifflin, page 362",
          "text": "There's something truly irresistible about the pearl-clutching cartoons that came out during the time people thought women on bicycles were single-handedly going to bring society to ruin.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Prim, prudish, or easily offended."
      ],
      "id": "en-pearl-clutching-en-adj-r79J17~I",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "Prim",
          "prim#English"
        ],
        [
          "prudish",
          "prudish"
        ],
        [
          "easily",
          "easily"
        ],
        [
          "offended",
          "offended"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, derogatory) Prim, prudish, or easily offended."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "pearl-clutcher"
        },
        {
          "word": "clutch one's pearls"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "pearl-clutchy"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f8/En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg/En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pearl-clutching"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the image of a genteel woman clutching her pearl necklace in shock.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more pearl-clutching",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most pearl-clutching",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "pearl-clutching"
      },
      "expansion": "pearl-clutching (comparative more pearl-clutching, superlative most pearl-clutching)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "pearl-clutcher"
    },
    {
      "word": "clutch one's pearls"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2007, Amanda Marcotte, It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, Seal Press, page 141",
          "text": "When John Kerry “outed” Mary Cheney in a 2004 presidential debate, it was already well known that Mary Cheney was a lesbian. You can't out the already out, no matter what pearl-clutching pundits would have you believe.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, April Winchell, Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF, Villard Books, page 131",
          "text": "Even the biggest doe-eyed, pearl-clutching Etsy muffin has to find some way to make it okay to be negative, because we have no choice.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Jeff Smith, Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, editors, The Best American Comics 2013, Houghton Mifflin, page 362",
          "text": "There's something truly irresistible about the pearl-clutching cartoons that came out during the time people thought women on bicycles were single-handedly going to bring society to ruin.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Prim, prudish, or easily offended."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "Prim",
          "prim#English"
        ],
        [
          "prudish",
          "prudish"
        ],
        [
          "easily",
          "easily"
        ],
        [
          "offended",
          "offended"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, derogatory) Prim, prudish, or easily offended."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f8/En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg/En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/En-au-pearl-clutching.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "pearl-clutchy"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pearl-clutching"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.