prude: [18] Old French prudefemme ‘virtuous woman’ meant literally ‘fine thing of a woman’. It was a lexicalization of the phrase *preu de femme, in which preu meant ‘fine, brave, virtuous’ (its variant prud gave English proud). In the 17th century it was shortened to prude (Molière is the first writer on record as using it), with distinctly negative connotations of ‘overvirtuousness’. It was borrowed into English at the beginning of the 18th century, and for a couple of hundred years continued to be used almost exclusively with reference to women. => proud
