Definition of "censorious"

Be not too rigidly Cenſorious, / A ſtring may jarr in the beſt Maſters hand, / And the moſt skilfull Archer miſs his aim; / But in a Poem elegantly writ, / I will not quarrel with a ſlight miſtake, / Such as our Natures frailty may excuſe; […]

1680, Horace, translated by Earl of Roscommon , page 24

[S]he remembered the Countess of Rotheles's advice, and she well knew the very pointed words and looks Lady Allerton could assume when it suited her humour to be censorious, and was well aware that every particular of the evening's entertainment would be transmitted with a jaundiced tint to Rotheles Castle for the amusement and animadversion of her invalid brother.

1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, page 223

But, my dear David, this world is a censorious place—as who should know it better than myself, who have lived ever since the days of my late departed father, God sain him! in a perfect spate of calumnies?

1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Twosome”, in Catriona, London, Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, page 331

But I'm guessing the girls didn't push for molestation charges because they were censorious prudes who would grow into knowing how to take such behaviour on the chin – they felt genuinely threatened, they took their concerns to court, and they deserved more than being told that they'd misread the situation all along.

2013 September 20, Holly Baxter, “Is masturbating in public a laughing matter?”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, archived from the original on 2021-01-29

Thanks to a censorious judge, the vile behaviour of the duke, a series of photographs showing the duchess performing fellatio on an unidentified man and her own altruistic, if high-handed, refusal to defend herself, the sexual ins and outs of this separation are a matter of incredibly detailed historical record.

2021 December 17, Zoe Williams, “‘I like sex and am extremely good at it’ – the real crime of the ‘fellatio duchess’ in A Very British Scandal”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, archived from the original on 2023-04-01

Chick-Fil-A[sic] has survived and thrived because they served everyone AND refused to cater to the cancel culture. Now they’ve caved at the behest of the censorious Left. This is a terrible move and just the latest indicator that the center cannot hold.

2019 November 19, Josh Milton, quoting Ben Shapiro, “Ben Shapiro and his alt-right rabble are mourning the loss of homophobic chicken”, in PinkNews‎, archived from the original on 2023-07-17

Is there something in the California water that makes Silicon Valley's censorious dweebs so damned shameless?

2021 May 27, Sohrab Ahmari, “Facebook’s lab-leak censors owe The Post, and America, an apology”, in New York Post‎, New York, N.Y.: News Corp, archived from the original on 2023-04-25

Pushed by militantly conservative activists — and heeding the demands of an increasingly censorious group of conservative voters — Republican lawmakers are, in states across the country, introducing bills that suppress debate and stifle discussion in favor of the rote memorization of approved facts.

2022 February 18, Jamelle Bouie, “Opinion: You Just Can’t Tell the Truth About America Anymore”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, archived from the original on 2023-05-02

Only seven new gag order bills have become law so far this year, but these include some of the most censorious laws to date. Nineteen states, home to 122 million Americans, now have some sort of educational gag order on the books. The entire year can be summarized in a single word: escalation.

2022 September 12, Jeremy C. Young, “A Lot More Censorship Is Coming to a School Near You”, in The Daily Beast‎, archived from the original on 2023-07-05