Meaning & use
Pecksniffian
Last updated
Hypocritically pretending to be virtuous, benevolent, or high-minded while actually being self-serving.
See it in a sentence
His pecksniffian speech about honesty rang hollow given his own record of deceit.
Critics dismissed the politician's pecksniffian concern for the poor as pure theater.
A note on using this word
The word derives from Seth Pecksniff, a smugly hypocritical character in Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit.
Words with a similar meaning
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
sinceregenuine
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