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.
In 1871 Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty told Alice: “When I use a word, it means whatever I choose it to mean.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 15, 2025
A house on the site said to be the inspiration for the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme has been put up for sale.
From BBC • Apr. 19, 2024
Humpty Dumpty is an apt analogy here: It’s easier to prevent his great fall than to put him together again after he’s broken.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 11, 2023
“You can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again if you default on the debt,” said Bill Dudley, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
From New York Times • Jan. 17, 2023
We are like Humpty Dumpty and all these king’s horses and all these king’s men cannot put us back together again.
From "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman
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.
