What's the difference between prude and prudish?

Prude


Definition:

  • (a.) A woman of affected modesty, reserve, or coyness; one who is overscrupulous or sensitive; one who affects extraordinary prudence in conduct and speech.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A man of such ferocious spirit should not be remembered as a reactionary prude.
  • (2) Only a prude would expect their politicians not to exaggerate.
  • (3) I am no prude but often when I am walking home I see guys staggering about peeing randomly into gardens, bus stops, doorways.
  • (4) Nor does she pretend to be a prude or indulge in false shame.
  • (5) She's no prude, but found them disrespectful and out of place, but the male producer claimed they were just a joke, part of the "friendly banter".
  • (6) She doesn’t mention any grudge against Schnabel, just a generalised rage at having been “shelved and discredited by people who didn’t like that I was deeply honest [and] an unavailable prude who, at times, had a big mouth”.
  • (7) Breastfeeding moms get harassed, too – our culture expects women to cover up their “dirty pillows” for the sake of the children and the prudes on Facebook or sensationalizes the choice to not to do so.
  • (8) For a moment, Swift seemed in danger of typecasting herself as a victimised prude.
  • (9) "If he had said I was a prude I don't think I could have stayed with him."
  • (10) We have to ask ourselves, then: does this prude really have what it takes to be a world champion?
  • (11) People didn’t like that I was deeply honest and an unavailable prude who, at times, had a big mouth Yet she still had currency enough to win the prize role of Vicki Vale in Tim Burton’s Batman.
  • (12) However, we know he was a prude and I perceive him, to a certain degree, as a prick and smug and that is where we start.

Prudish


Definition:

  • (a.) Like a prude; very formal, precise, or reserved; affectedly severe in virtue; as, a prudish woman; prudish manners.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Much of his work – including National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), Meatballs (1979) and Ghostbusters (1984), all of which he co-wrote, and Caddyshack (1980), which he co-wrote and directed – changed the course of US film comedy, even if the prudish might argue that it was not for the better.
  • (2) This can be surprising to the relatively prudish mainstream of previous generations.
  • (3) Read says that while his father operated in louche artistic circles and had "ditched his first wife to be with my mother, slightly in the liberated spirit of Shelley or Gauguin", he had been born and brought up in the 19th century and deep down had a "rather prudish" approach to life.
  • (4) Recent news regarding Ira Sachs’ new film Love Is Strange is a prime example of how age classification systems can smother art under bigoted and prudish anxieties.
  • (5) Emin's beautiful body is her one great idea, but I suspect that she is rather prudish, which means that there are limits to the use she can make of her body and its rackety past.
  • (6) I worry because I find myself siding with Don over Megan and given the selfish, prudish, treachorous, patriarchal figure he is I know this ain't right.
  • (7) Apart from physiological flushes represented by emotional or prudish blushing, post-prandial flushes and menopausal hot flushes, various pathologic flushes exist of various etiologies: endocrine, dysmetabolic, histaminic and iatrogenic.
  • (8) Liekens has said the UK has been "too prudish for too long" about sex education.
  • (9) For a humorist who came on the scene in the 1960s, Coren was surprisingly prudish.
  • (10) In the UK, we are still slightly discomfited by the idea of baring all in a confessional essay, partly, one presumes, because we are restrained by a sort of cultural prudishness, but also because we do not wish to appear self-indulgent.
  • (11) I had friends who lost their virginity at 13, and I’d be like, ‘Disgusting!’” Despite her prudishness, as soon as Peake started to act, she was stereotyped.
  • (12) I half shouted to a rep, ‘I’m not singing that’ and he said ‘yeah it is a bit naughty’, as if I was being prudish.
  • (13) I am asking, if Christianity managed to imbue Anglo-Saxon cultures with this prudishness, why did the moral strictures of any other religious system not imbue their cultures?"
  • (14) "You don't think Islam has had just as much an effect on prudishness?"
  • (15) Facebook has been accused of a lot of things, from riding roughshod over people’s privacy to prudishly censoring the most innocuous of photographs.
  • (16) She will insist she is not arguing for "prudishness or hankering after some rose-tinted picture of childhood", but for families and children that can negotiate issues of sexuality with dignity and respect.
  • (17) It is hard to imagine a scandal of Claridge’s proportions kicking off over here – not because Americans are less prudish than Brits, but because breastfeeding in public is clearly just a scheduling issue, and if New Yorkers understand anything it’s the Primacy of the Schedule.
  • (18) 'I'm really not prudish about doing nudity,' she continues.
  • (19) Galleguillos said his tweets – calling Rentería a “weeping negrito” and attacking “prudish, timid hypocrites” – were sent “in good faith … I called him negrito with affection, caringly, because he cried, the man cried.
  • (20) Experts warned that Seek McCartney’s approval should not necessarily be hailed as a sign of a relaxation of censors’ usually prudish attitudes.