How to Use puritanical in a Sentence

puritanical

adjective
  • The thugs take an interest in the girl, but are wary of their puritanical boss.
    — Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2018
  • Are you vexed by how puritanical the country is getting about books and art?
    — Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 30 Nov. 2022
  • Susan was naïve to the point of being puritanical about drugs, say her friends.
    — Lisa Depaulo, Vulture, 30 Apr. 2024
  • In a strange puritanical gesture, the kiss was cut.
    — Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 22 Sep. 2025
  • To the shock of no one, this puritanical line of thinking has already claimed its first victim.
    — Isaac Schorr, National Review, 25 Aug. 2020
  • In this way, television’s most racy show is also its most puritanical.
    — Jenny Singer, Glamour, 3 Feb. 2023
  • His puritanical decrees sucked the joy out of life as surely as mosquitoes suck blood.
    — The Economist, 16 Dec. 2020
  • What’s a guy to do whose free-spirited life doesn’t adhere to puritanical normative hours?
    — Jeff Gordinier, Esquire, 18 Oct. 2017
  • And in a puritanical twist, Donda is only available for sale and on streaming in its clean version.
    — Justin Curto, Vulture, 30 Aug. 2021
  • In the song, an old-growth tree provides cover from the watchful eye of puritanical church folk; chili dogs and ice cream are an excuse to break free from parents.
    — Literary Hub, 29 Apr. 2026
  • The crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, is trying to make the kingdom less puritanical.
    — The Economist, 14 Dec. 2017
  • The complaints were frequently of a puritanical and/or phony high-brow bent.
    — Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 16 Aug. 2024
  • Many people on the internet did not take kindly to such puritanical belt-tightening.
    — Brady Brickner-Wood, New Yorker, 29 Apr. 2026
  • The root of it is our puritanical Calvinist attitudes about pleasure.
    — Omar Sanchez, EW.com, 22 June 2020
  • But Strummer always had a puritanical zeal about his punk mission and a terror of getting corrupted by fame.
    — Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 9 Nov. 2025
  • In puritanical America, the taboo lingers more than in England.
    — Christian Schneider, National Review, 21 Dec. 2023
  • The hooded mannequins are one symbol of the Taliban’s puritanical rule over Afghanistan.
    — Ebrahim Noroozi, BostonGlobe.com, 16 Jan. 2023
  • Compared to the chaos outdoors, the house itself possessed a surprising air of puritanical tidiness, even his study, which was bursting with books.
    — László F. Földényi, Harper’s Magazine , 13 Mar. 2023
  • Statistics like these have become part of a discussion about whether the culture is growing prudish and puritanical.
    — Faith Hill, The Atlantic, 13 Jan. 2026
  • With the militants bent on imposing a puritanical form of Islam, the family packed their bags and fled.
    — Kiana Hayeri, New York Times, 30 Sep. 2022
  • Many dismissed the charges as puritanical overreaction, insisting that what grownups do with their bodies is their own business.
    — Stephanie Ebbert, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Mar. 2021
  • The suspension of Dave Weigel for a retweet reflects a puritanical mindset on the left that is only getting worse over time.
    — Noah Rothman, National Review, 7 June 2022
  • There was something puritanical and stunted in all of this critical handwringing.
    — Mark Rozzo, Vanity Fair, 12 June 2026
  • Living in lockdown without an answer, Ernst was among those who adhered to the most puritanical precautions.
    — Camille Caldera, BostonGlobe.com, 29 Aug. 2022
  • Europeans can no longer snicker about the American puritanical streak, the old litmus test for our politicians.
    — Nina Burleigh, The New Republic, 1 Aug. 2023
  • Before each performance, the scene is set by a narrator who speaks in a prim, puritanical accent reminiscent of a bygone era.
    — Sonaiya Kelley, Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 2024
  • Perhaps because of its puritanical roots, any place that serves alcohol in Boston also has to have a full menu—so there aren’t straight-up bars here or anywhere else.
    — Shannon McMahon, Condé Nast Traveler, 17 June 2026
  • But in recent years, this puritanical approach to managing the ups and downs of the economy had fallen into disrepute.
    — Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post, 27 May 2022
  • This voyeurism will later be held against Helm during the puritanical trend (big misunderstanding).
    — Literary Hub, 3 Nov. 2025
  • Many writers in Paris in the 1930s took aim at our puritanical society and tried to open up ways of telling the truth about men and women and lust.
    — Elaine Blair, The New York Review of Books, 21 Mar. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'puritanical.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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