sanctimonious
/ˌsæŋk.tɪˈmoʊ.ni.əs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.58 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
5
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Making a show of being morally better than others, especially hypocritically pious.
Example Sentences
- "Near-synonyms: smug, self-righteous; see also Thesaurus:arrogant"
- "Thou conclud'st like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandements, but scrap'd one out of the table."
- "[O]ne / Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men / But honeying at the whisper of a lord; / And one the Master, as a rogue in grain / Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory."
- "It'd be easy to write off Michael Moore as a fat, scruffy, sanctimonious Bolchevik poseur (actually, I do write off Michael Moore as a fat, scruffy, sanctimonious Bolchevik poseur) but the fact is that there's about five minutes of cleverness in this […]"
- "And this is indeed needed, since we who consider these awkward Christian ideas are but fearful, sanctimonious people, as Kierkegaard once put it so passionately: O, you sanctimonious people with your love which does not set you apart […]"
Etymology
Etymology tree English sanctimony Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *h₃édosder.? Proto-Italic *-ŏ̄dsos? Old Latin -ōssus Latin -ōsus Old French -usbor. Middle English -ous English -ous English sanctimonious From sanctimony + -ous.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌsæŋk.tɪˈmoʊ.ni.əs/
- British English: /ˌsæŋk.tɪˈməʊ.ni.əs/
Usage
Inflected Forms
more sanctimonious (comparative)
most sanctimonious (superlative)