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hypocritical

UK/hɪpəˈkɹɪtɪkəl/US/hɪpəˈkɹɪtɪkəl/
adjectiveC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,507 of 15,258neutral

Hypocritical means claiming standards you do not keep yourself. A hypocritical stance, deeply hypocritical, hypocritical of him.

The charge is about the claim and not the failure: falling short of your own standards is being human, and pretending you have not is what makes it hypocritical. The Greek behind it means acting a part on stage.

Definitions of hypocritical

  1. 1adjectivehypocriticalClaiming standards you do not keep yourself.C1

    “It's hypocritical of him to lecture us about smoking when he smokes himself.”

hypocritical is a quality.

Where it comes from

Greek hypokrites means an actor, from hypokrinesthai, to play a part.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *krey-

  2. Ancient Greek

    ὑποκριτικός

  3. English, today

    hypocritical

Built from

  • ὑποκριτής · Ancient Greek — actor, hypocrite
  • ὑποκρίνομαι · Ancient Greek — I play a part on stage
  • ὑπό · Ancient Greek — below
  • κρίνω · Ancient Greek — I choose

From hypocritic + -al, from Ancient Greek ὑποκριτικός, from ὑποκριτής (“actor, hypocrite”), from ὑποκρίνομαι (“I play a part on stage”), from ὑπό (“below”) + κρίνω (“I choose”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

hypocritical in the wild

  • Frequent targets include hypocritical behavior by church members, the church's repression and denial of its history, and fanatics who take church doctrines a bit too far.

    Saintspeak

  • At the end of the short, Daisy displays a dangerous temper, which is hypocritical considering that she criticized Donald for his short temper beforehand.

    Donald's Double Trouble

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.