pecksniffian

PRONUNCIATION:
(pek-SNIF-ee-uhn)

MEANING:
adjective: Pretending to have high moral principles; sanctimonious, hypocritical.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Seth Pecksniff, a character in Charles Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit. Earliest documented use: 1844.

NOTES:
Charles Dickens describes Pecksniff like this: “Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there.”

USAGE:
“She said, ‘Davis, stop being such a Pecksniffian stuffed shirt.'”
Jay Inman; Sunigin; WestBow Press; 2012.

“In the meantime, the pecksniffian French consul was feigning indignation.”
Bob Stockton; Fighting Bob; AuthorHouse; 2011.

Via Wordsmith.org