Hypocritical
adj ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Characterized by hypocrisy or being a hypocrite.
"The British Empire was in a somewhat-hypocritical position when it came to slavery. Due to the fact that most other nations were at war with the Empire and the Royal Navy controlled the seas, most slavers were flying British flags. However, slavery in England had been banned hundreds of years before, in 1102, with periodic court cases reaffirming this through the centuries."
- 1 professing feelings or virtues one does not have wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite."
Etymology
From hypocritic + -al, from Ancient Greek ὑποκριτικός (hupokritikós), from ὑποκριτής (hupokritḗs, “actor, hypocrite”), from ὑποκρίνομαι (hupokrínomai, “I play a part on stage”), from ὑπό (hupó, “below”) + κρίνω (krínō, “I choose”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.