Dictionary

Whitehousian en · ADJ

Etymology

From Whitehouse + -ian; named after Mary Whitehouse (1910–2001), English activist who stridently opposed social liberalism and the permissiveness of the mainstream media.

Meanings

1. Prudish; morally censorious.
   • His assumption of the Whitehousian justification for censorship (and the use of 'the middle-aged' here is thin cover indeed for the first person singular) — to wit, that these American-style papers may corrupt their children, damage community relations, reduce British cities to New York level, or pollute the public mind. 1972, The Listener, volume 87, page 279:
   • […] for those disenchanted with sexual liberation, a basis for sexual caution without retreat into Whitehousian moral orthodoxy. 2012, Lesley A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880, page 164:
   • These range from naive and strident Whitehousian tirades against the supposedly corrosive effects of on screen sex, violence and profanity, to the much more sophisticated arguments of, say, William Fore (1987) or Neil Postman (1987). 2017, Steven J. Sutcliffe, Religion: Empirical Studies:
   • Exactly the same technique may still be seen whenever we come upon 'f—' or 'f***' in print; every reader supplies the missing 'uck', but the Whitehousian proprieties are observed. 1986, Bernard Levin, In These Times, page 15:

Forms

wikipedia: Mary Whitehouse