Comstockery

Quick meaning: Comstockery is a noun meaning (US) Censorship of literature and performances because of especially broad definitions of obscenity or immorality.

Meaning

(US) Censorship of literature and performances because of especially broad definitions of obscenity or immorality.

Example Sentences

1905, George Bernard Shaw, letter, New York Times, Sept. 26, 1905, Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States.

Yet while chiding extreme libertarianism, [David] Selbourne veers dangerously close to Comstockery in his tsk-tsking of noise that “masquerades as music,” gender fluidity, sperm banks, bad grammar, video plagiarists and other presumed vices.

1916, H. L. Mencken, column, Baltimore Evening Sun, July, 19, 1916, A people unconvinced of the pervasiveness of sin, the supreme importance of moral problems, the need of harsh and inquisitorial laws--in brief, of the whole Puritan theological and political apparatus--would never have permitted the growth of such curious flowers as Comstockery, so obnoxious and so incomprehensible to all foreigners.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include costerdom, stockmanship, she-stuff, stockwoman, stockkeeper, seedstock.

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