censorious
/sɛnˈsɔɹiəs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.94 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Addicted to censure and scolding; apt to blame or condemn; severe in making remarks on others, or on their writings or manners.
adj
adj
Tending to engage in or support censorship.
Example Sentences
- "Be not too rigidly Cenſorious, / A ſtring may jarr in the beſt Maſters hand, / And the moſt skilfull Archer miſs his aim; / But in a Poem elegantly writ, / I will not quarrel with a ſlight miſtake, / Such as our Natures frailty may excuſe; […]"
- "[S]he remembered the Countess of Rotheles's advice, and she well knew the very pointed words and looks Lady Allerton could assume when it suited her humour to be censorious, and was well aware that every particular of the evening's entertainment would be transmitted with a jaundiced tint to Rotheles Castle for the amusement and animadversion of her invalid brother."
- "But, my dear David, this world is a censorious place—as who should know it better than myself, who have lived ever since the days of my late departed father, God sain him! in a perfect spate of calumnies?"
- "But I'm guessing the girls didn't push for molestation charges because they were censorious prudes who would grow into knowing how to take such behaviour on the chin – they felt genuinely threatened, they took their concerns to court, and they deserved more than being told that they'd misread the situation all along."
- "Thanks to a censorious judge, the vile behaviour of the duke, a series of photographs showing the duchess performing fellatio on an unidentified man and her own altruistic, if high-handed, refusal to defend herself, the sexual ins and outs of this separation are a matter of incredibly detailed historical record."
- "censorious remarks"
Etymology
From Latin cēnsōrius (“of or pertaining to a censor; severe”). In sense 3 ("tending to engage in or support censorship"), reanalyzed as censor + -ious.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
Inflected Forms
more censorious (comparative)
most censorious (superlative)