as in puritanism
a tendency to care a great deal about seemly behavior and morals especially in sexual matters
a misguided nice-nellyism prompted the city-owned art museum to cancel its scheduled exhibit on the nude in photography
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for nice-nellyism
Noun
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Inevitably, puritanism is going to come out and come back and go away.—
Ryan Lattanzio,
IndieWire,
27 Nov. 2024 -
He in turn was denounced for what many thought was an old-fashioned puritanism and what many also thought was jealousy — the production was directed by his successor at Yale, Lloyd Richards.—
Bruce Weber,
New York Times,
29 Oct. 2023
Noun
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To say anything else, many feminists now argue, would be to infantilize her, to subordinate her—to the state, to moralism—rather than acknowledge her mastery of her own body.—
S. C. Cornell,
New Yorker,
5 Jan. 2026
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Much of Ian MacKaye’s progressive moralism comes from his Episcopal upbringing.—
Chris R. Morgan,
The Washington Examiner,
22 Aug. 2025
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“Nice-nellyism.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/nice-nellyism. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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