Meaning & use
Puritan
A member of a strict Protestant group in England and America who sought to purify church practices, or, lowercase, a person with rigid moral views.
See it in a sentence
The Puritans who settled New England enforced strict rules about worship and daily conduct.
His coworkers joked that he was a puritan about deadlines, refusing any excuse for lateness.
A note on using this word
Capitalized, Puritan refers to the historical religious movement; lowercase, puritan describes anyone with strict, moralistic attitudes toward pleasure.
Words with a similar meaning
moralist
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
hedonist
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