Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
an egg-shaped character in a Mother Goose nursery rhyme that fell off a wall and could not be put together again.
(sometimes lowercase) something that has been damaged severely and usually irreparably.
a short fat person
a person or thing that once overthrown or broken cannot be restored or mended
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
One critic of Green Bay CC has seized upon all its humpty dumpty mounds that surround several greens, but to me, they're simply smaller imitations of the broader kettle moraine topography found on that site.
From Golf Digest • Jan. 9, 2018
Putting the climate humpty dumpty back together has involved understanding exactly what went on in Copenhagen, and attempting to do the opposite.
From BBC • Oct. 23, 2015
But, as Boehner also said on Fox on Sunday, it is “hard to put humpty dumpty back together again.”
From Time • Jul. 26, 2011
In 1996, when he was top scorer, he played a gem of an innings on a spiteful Eden Gardens pitch before everyone else went humpty dumpty in the semi-final.
From The Guardian • Jun. 23, 2010
A little humpty dumpty man or woman; a short clumsy person of either sex: also ale boiled with brandy.
From 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Grose, Francis
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.
