Puritan: Most familiar to modern Americans as the religious denomination of the Mayflower colonists, the Puritans were a Protestant sect particularly active during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In a positive sense, Americans associate Puritanism with the struggle for religious freedom since the Puritans colonized America to escape religious persecution, however, the idea is something of a misconception since the Puritans' hope was to create an all-encompassing Puritan culture in the new colony, not to create a cosmopolitan, tolerant society open to other branches of Protestant Christianity, much less Catholicism, Judaism, or other religions. (That sort of religious tolerance comes about in American culture largely as a result of the Deism fashionable among intellectuals in the eighteenth century during the writing of the Constitution.) In its negative sense, the word Puritan often evokes the idea of dour, grim, religious conformity, since Puritans stereotypically wore only black and white, they frowned upon drinking, dancing, and displays of sexuality, burned aging misfits as witches, censored literature, and closed Shakespeare's playhouses in England because of acting's 'immorality.' These tendencies have led to H. L. Mencken's jest defining Puritanism as 'the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.' Puritanism forms the backdrop of The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible in American literature. Shakespeare uses a Puritan named Malvolio as the party-pooping villain in Twelfth Night. See also Roundhead and Puritan Interregnum.

 

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Puritan: Most familiar to modern Americans as the religious denomination of the Mayflower colonists, the Puritans were a Protestant sect particularly active during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu . . . View Full Definition

Puritan Interregnum: The term refers to both the Puritan government established under Oliver Cromwell after a civil war against the British monarch and those years in which that government lasted (1649-1658). Th . . . View Full Definition

Restoration: Any material or devise used to replace lost tooth structure (filling, crown) or to replace a lost tooth or teeth (bridge, dentures, complete or partial).

Roundhead: Not to be confused with round character, (see above), a Roundhead is a member or supporter of the parliamentarian or Puritan party during the English Civil War, one of those who opposed King . . . View Full Definition