governessy

(ˈɡʌvənɪsɪ)

adj

resembling or typical of a governess

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

References in periodicals archive ?

San San Tin seems tremendously more animated than the saintly and "governessy" Suu Kyi depicted in Perfect Hostage, and her narrative is consequently more engaging and fluid.

Isolation and repression

At the risk of pursuing this reflection too far, there is something decidedly governessy about the Tate, which makes one nervous about its involvement in an enterprise of this kind.

The self-importance of being earnest: Tate has collaborated with Yale to publish a three-volume history of British art. For all its many good qualities, writes Robin Simon, it suffers from Tate's familar biases

Coward immediately invited Osborne for a peace-making supper at his London flat where he enquired how queer he was and gave him a governessy finger-wagging of his own.

Look back at Osborne: the original Angry Young Man mixes it up with Beckett, Coward, Ravenhill and the empire

There was something in Vera's governessy tone, however, that provoked me too, and I sent off an impassioned defense of bullfights and rodeos that ended intemperately: