comstockery

noun

1. Censorship of literature and performances because of especially broad definitions of obscenity or immorality.

   uncountable

   Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States.

   1905, George Bernard Shaw, letter, New York Times, Sept. 26, 1905,

Where it comes from

Named after Anthony Comstock (1844–1915) (and the Comstock laws which he propagated) + -ery, coined in an editorial in The New York Times in 1895 and famously adopted by George Bernard Shaw in 1905.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry comstockery (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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