niminy-piminy

• nimini-pimini, miminy-piminy, niminy-priminy

niminy-piminy (comparative more niminy-piminy, superlative most niminy-piminy)

1. overtly or excessively prim
   • 1868, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women:

     "I detest rude, unlady-like girls." "I hate affected, niminy piminy chits."

   • 1902, Hilaire Belloc, The Path To Rome:

     Inside were many fine pictures, not in the niminy-piminy manner, but strong, full-coloured, and just.

   • 1919, Arthur Train, By Advice of Counsel:

     You pinheaded, pretentious, pompous, egotistical, niminy-piminy-

   • 2009, Michela Wrong, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower:

     We should be less niminy-piminy and say what we think.

   • 2013, Patrick Leigh Fermor, The Broken Road:

     We began challenging each other to drink a whole tumblerful of wine at a single draught and at high speed. The girls hang back from the ordeal, and returned the glass after spluttering, niminy-piminy sips;

   • 2018, Laura Freeman, The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite:

     That is what my eating abroad had been: fearful, niminy-piminy slivers of prosciutto and single olives.

niminy-piminy (uncountable)

1. excessive primness; affected delicacy; mincingness
2. one who acts in an excessively prim manner
   • 1976, Isaac Asimov, Murder at the ABA:

     "I was," she said, "but I didn’t stay." Her nose was shiny and her hair was bedraggled. "If I had been penned in with that niminy-piminy any longer I'd have broken down the door to get out."