as in stick-in-the-mud
informal + disapproving
a person (such as a child) whose good behavior and politeness are annoying because they seem to be excessive or not sincere
The other kids don't like her because she's a goody-goody.
Related Words
Relevance
Dissimilar Words
1
as in pious
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
2
as in priggish
Related Words
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for goody-goody
Noun
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One only has to think about the British fight against Nazism to be reminded that it was made of imperialists, constitutionalists, stick-in-the-mud aristocrats, and the socialists who first helped put Winston Churchill into power and then five years later helped push him out again.
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But opposing him is Stagg, a Scottish, stick-in-the-mud academic (which is saying a lot by most weather men’s personality standards), who insists on making the team’s joint recommendation exclusively using the current observational data available to Allied forces.
Adjective
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However, this distinction did more than pit pious Americans against an atheist enemy.
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In Wake-Keeper (2026), a roughly four-by-five-foot canvas, a pious man draped in the red cloth of traditional Ghanaian funeral attire sits on a stool with his hands clasped, his body facing the left side of the frame.
Adjective
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Self-righteous and self-important, priggish and nagging.
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Ghaywan’s script is explicit but never priggish in its moral standing, letting the outstanding performances drive home the perils of bigotry more than any grandstanding dialogue.
Noun
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Liv locked in the half-crab on Iyo Sky with Iyo a long way away from the ropes.
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Families rent crab pots and put their catch in plastic buckets held by delighted children.
Adjective
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Navy excels at untangling human emotions and picking through them without being didactic or moralistic.
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Last year, a YouTube channel called Akhbar Enfejari (Explosive News) began posting a variety of digital content with a political and moralistic bent.
Adjective
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Cross-dressing was prohibited, as were speeches that mocked or questioned the party’s prudish, pro-family, heteronormative views on gender and sexuality; traditional German culture was to be celebrated, not mocked.
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Statistics like these have become part of a discussion about whether the culture is growing prudish and puritanical.
Noun
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How consumers -- especially younger drinkers -- answer them will determine whether an industry long defined by fuddy-duddy pretense can find its footing in 2026 and beyond.
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In the years that followed, American landscape painting was shuffled off to storage to make room for modernism, and paintings like Church’s, with their glassy finishes and profuse detail, came to seem the embodiment of fuddy-duddy.
Adjective
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There are few things in this world more sanctimonious and hypocritical than left-wing sportswriters getting on their faux moral high horse.
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That’s when the movie takes a direction that’s both maudlin in the true sense of the word and ultimately even sanctimonious regarding the heroine’s sudden redemption.
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Cite this Entry
“Goody-goody.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/goody-goody. Accessed 1 Jul. 2026.
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