Other forms: hypocrisies
Hypocrisy is preaching one thing while doing the opposite. Sheer hypocrisy, accused of hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of it.
It is one of the accusations people mind most, because it attacks sincerity rather than judgement — being wrong is forgivable and being false is not. Charges of hypocrisy are a staple of politics. Note the useful distinction: hypocrisy is knowingly failing to practise what you preach, and failing at a standard you sincerely hold is not the same thing, though the word gets used for both.
1nounhypocrisyPreaching one thing while doing the opposite.
“It's pure hypocrisy for him to lecture us about saving energy while he drives a huge car.”
hypocrisy is a form of insincerity.
Greek hypokrisis meant acting on a stage, from hypokrinesthai, to answer or play a part. A hypocrite was literally an actor, and the theatrical sense is exactly the modern complaint.
Proto-Indo-European
*krey-
Ancient Greek
ὑπόκρισις — answer, stage acting, pretense
Latin
hypocrisis
Old French
ypocrisie
Middle English
ipocrisie
English, today
hypocrisy
Built from
From hypo- + κρί(σις) + -isy. From Middle English ipocrisie, from Old French ypocrisie, from Latin hypocrisis, from Ancient Greek ὑπόκρισις (“answer, stage acting, pretense”), from ὑποκρίνομαι (“I answer (a fellow actor on stage), play a part, dissemble, feign”), from ὑπό (“under, equivalent of the modern "hypo-" prefix”) + the middle voice of κρίνω (“I separate, judge, decide”) + -isy. Displaced native līċettung.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA