Tartuffery

[ tahr-toof-uh-ree, -too-fuh- ]

noun

1. behavior or character of a Tartuffe, especially hypocritical piety.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Tartuffery¹

From the French word tartufferie, dating back to 1850–55. See Tartuffe, -ry

Example Sentences

In a text book designed for the edification of research workers—a specimen of peculiarly disagreeable tartuffery—the histologist, Ramón y Cajal, who, as a thinker, has always been an absolute mediocrity, explains what the young scholar should be, in the same way that the Constitution of 1812 made it clear what the ideal Spanish citizen should be.

From Project Gutenberg

It is to be hoped, indeed, that LANGUAGE, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness, and that it will continue to talk of opposites where there are only degrees and many refinements of gradation; it is equally to be hoped that the incarnated Tartuffery of morals, which now belongs to our unconquerable "flesh and blood," will turn the words round in the mouths of us discerning ones.

From Project Gutenberg

Every nation has its own "Tartuffery," and calls that its virtue.—One does not know—cannot know, the best that is in one.

From Project Gutenberg

Out upon you, Priests of Beelzebub and Moloch; of Tartuffery, Mammon, and the Prussian Gallows,—which ye name Mother-Church and God!

From Project Gutenberg