Paul Pry

A nosy, meddlesome person. The phrase refers to the title character of a 19th-century play by John Poole. Come on, Paul Pry, stop asking so many questions about my personal life!

See also: Paul, pry

References in periodicals archive ?

From 1827 to 1829 Heath signed his drawings with a tiny image of the celebrated comic actor John Liston in the role of Paul Pry, the meddling nosey parker character from John Poole's popular 1825 farce of the same name.

Paul Pry's noble duke: Mark Bryant describes how a nosey parker drew some inspiration from Old Nosey's career

He [Southey] conceives that the business of the magistrate is not merely to see that the persons and property of the people are secure from attack, but that he ought to be a jack-of-all-trades--architect, engineer, school-master, merchant, theologian, a Lady Bountiful in every parish, a Paul Pry in every house, spying, eavesdropping, relieving, admonishing, spending our money for us, and choosing our opinions for us.

Confessions of a Macaulay Fan

the newspaper Paul Pry, which was succeeded by The Huntress.

Royall, Anne Newport (1769-1854)

At the age of 61 she started the weekly Paul Pry, possibly taking the name from an English play that exposed the alliance of church and state.

Finding it impossible to keep Paul Pry afloat financially, she ended the paper in 1836, only to replace it two weeks later with a new publication, The Huntress.