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Prurient vs Ribald - What's the difference?

prurient | ribald |

As adjectives the difference between prurient and ribald

is that prurient is uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious anxiety or propensity; lustful while ribald is coarsely, vulgarly, or lewdly amusing; referring to sexual matters in a rude or irreverent way.

As a noun ribald is

an individual who is filthy or vulgar in nature.

prurient

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious anxiety or propensity; lustful.
  • * 1823 , The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, Etc , page 781,
  • We know that at that period certain indecencies in the dresses, even of those who were considered as the most refined and polished men of the age, were not only tolerated but ostentatiously displayed, and every sort of device that the most prurient mind could think of was had recourse to, to attract attention or excite a smile.
  • * 1995 , Brian Parkinson, Ideas and Realities of Emotion , page 124,
  • For example, some of the more prudish senders may have averted their attention from the sexual pictures while other more prurient viewers may have intensified their gaze.
  • * 2010 , Stephen Sartarelli (translator), Love and the Erotic in Art'', (2008, Stefano Zuffi, ''Amore ed erotismo ), John Paul Getty Trust, US, page 7,
  • It must be removed at once, lest it disturb the young and arouse in adults the most prurient thoughts.
  • Arousing or appealing to sexual desire.
  • * 1825 , The Literary Chronicle for the Year 1825 , London, page 156,
  • nor is it more prurient or lascivious than many productions to be found in a circulating library.
  • * 2005 , Donald Gilbert-Santamaría, Writers on the Market: Consuming Literature in Early Seventeenth-century Spain , page 130,
  • Much of my discussion in the previous two chapters has focused on the dichotomy in Alemán's novel between the author's stated interest in moral didacticism and the more prurient appeal of the novel's representations of material privation and violent spectacle.
  • * 2008 , Marcel Danesi, Popular Culture: Introductory Perspectives , page 204,
  • But in contemporary consumerist societies, when the kids are safely in bed, television programs allow viewers to indulge their more prurient interests.
  • Curious, especially inappropriately so.
  • Synonyms

    * (uneasy with desire) lustful * (sexually arousing or appealing) titillating

    Derived terms

    * prurient interest

    ribald

    English

    Alternative forms

    * ribauld (rare)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Coarsely, vulgarly, or lewdly amusing; referring to sexual matters in a rude or irreverent way.
  • * 1693 , :
  • [L]et no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar.
  • * 1875 , May 15, Anonymous, " :
  • But when he died the "Reform Democracy" instinctively returned to its vomit of ribald insult.
  • * 1888 , ", Can Such Things Be?'' (Pub. 1893):Originally published in the ''San Francisco Examiner'' on June 24, 1888, and later included in ''Can Such Things Be?'' and ''Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories .
  • [T]he curious crowd had collected in the street , with here and there a scoffer uttering his incredulity and courage with scornful remarks or ribald cries.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An individual who is filthy or vulgar in nature.
  • * 1483 [1900 edition], :
  • After, he made an harlot, a ribald , come to him alone for to touch his members and his body, to move to lechery.

    References

    Anagrams

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