Humpty Dumpty
[huhmp-tee duhmp-tee]
- 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.
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Origin of Humpty Dumpty
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
humpty dumpty
- a short fat person
- a person or thing that once overthrown or broken cannot be restored or mended
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Word Origin
C18: after the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
“Humpty Dumpty”
A nursery rhyme:
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.
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.