Pecksniffian

American  

[pek-snif-ee-uhn] / pɛkˈsnɪf i ən /

Sometimes Pecksniffish

adjective

(often lowercase)

1. hypocritically and unctuously affecting benevolence or high moral principles.

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Pecksniffian British  

/ pɛkˈsnɪfɪən /

adjective

1. affecting benevolence or high moral principles

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Other Word Forms

• Pecksniffery
  noun
• Pecksniffianism
  noun
• Pecksniffism
  noun

Etymology

Origin of Pecksniffian

1850–55; named after Seth Pecksniff, character in Martin Chuzzlewit, a novel (1843) by Dickens; see -ian

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Pecksniffian

With another season underway, suspend your Pecksniffian disapproval of the college football industry’s recent upheavals.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 28, 2022

Insults that are banned include "hypocrite", "blackguard" and "Pecksniffian cant", although only Jacob Rees-Mogg would use that last one these days.

From The Guardian ● May 26, 2012

We sometimes begin to move uneasily, as if something Pecksniffian had come into our presence, when we behold the twentieth century sitting in judgment on the manners and morals of the sixteenth century.

From Luther Examined and Reexamined A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation by W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore) Dau

Tigg and Mark Tapley, the youthful Bailey, Charity with upturned nose, the sanctimonious Mercy and her Pecksniffian airs were all made up to perfection.

From Sixty Years of California Song by Margaret Blake Alverson

And even when I come to feel a final incompatibility of temper, Pecksniff was not so Pecksniffian as he has since become.

From Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton