hypocrisy
Americannoun
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hypocrisies
plural
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a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
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a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.
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an act or instance of hypocrisy.
noun
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the practice of professing standards, beliefs, etc, contrary to one's real character or actual behaviour, esp the pretence of virtue and piety
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an act or instance of this
Synonym Usage
See duplicity.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hypocrisy
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English ipocrisie, from Old French, from Late Latin hypocrisis, from Greek hypókrisis “play acting,” from hypokrī(nesthai)́ “to play a part, explain” (from hypo- hypo- + krī́nein “to distinguish, separate”) + -sis -sis
Explanation
People who tell you not to eat candy while they chomp away on licorice all day? People who say they hate cars but always beg you for a ride? They are engaging in hypocrisy, or behavior that is different from what they say they believe. A hypocrite is a person who practices hypocrisy: what they say is not what they do. The noun hypocrisy descends from the Greek hypokrisis "acting on a stage," from hypokrinesthai "to play a part, pretend," from the prefix hypo- "under" plus krinein "to judge." Many times kids are enraged by their parents' hypocrisy when parents make their children follow rules they don't follow themselves.
Vocabulary lists containing hypocrisy
Advanced English Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One of the timeworn accusations against Holden Caulfield is hypocrisy: This guy calls everyone else phony, but he’s just as phony!
From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2026
German centre-right politician Jens Spahn has resigned as parliamentary group leader of the country's governing coalition after being accused of hypocrisy over his use of a surrogate mother in the US to have a child.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
She said last year she had turned down France's highest civilian honour, the legion d'honneur, accusing the country of "hypocrisy" over visa policies that prevented dissidents travelling from Iran to France.
From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026
Emilia, by contrast, is a strikingly modern figure in her cynical assessments of the hypocrisy of a culture that will deride women for sexual behavior that wouldn’t be censured in men.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 1, 2026
The hypocrisy of it made me so angry!
From "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" by Phillip Hoose
Through her fierce exposure of her ugly travails, Ms. Williams’s Anna seems to grow in stature and radiance—becoming a truth-teller who isn’t afraid to risk love, or life, to expose men’s hypocrisies and double standards.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 14, 2025
He was also an enslaver, blind, as so many others, to his own hypocrisies.
From Slate ● May 9, 2025
Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and playwright who cast a cynical eye on the personal and political anxieties, hypocrisies and disappointments of upper-middle-class urbanites, has died in Richfield Springs, N.Y,
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 21, 2025
The disillusionment I felt was rooted in something deeper than sex scandals or political hypocrisies or everyday human failures.
From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2023
In the dark, in the moonless jungle, the fissures are not so visible, the hypocrisies and lies less disturbing.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
