sanctimonious
adjective
G. B. Shaw
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How Shakespeare Used Sanctimonious
There’s nothing sacred about sanctimonious—at least not anymore. But in the early 1600s, the English adjective was still sometimes used to describe someone truly holy or pious, a sense at an important remove from today’s use describing someone who acts or behaves as though they are morally superior to others. (The now-obsolete “pious” sense recalls the meaning of the word’s Latin parent, sanctimonia, meaning “holiness” or “sanctity.”) Shakespeare used both the “holy” and “holier-than-thou” senses of sanctimonious in his work, referring in The Tempest to the “sanctimonious” (that is, “holy”) ceremonies of marriage, and in Measure for Measure to “the sanctimonious pirate that went to sea with the Ten Commandments but scraped one out of the table.” (Apparently, the pirate found the restriction on stealing inconvenient.)
Examples of sanctimonious in a Sentence
Diedrich Diederichsen, Artforum, 1 June 2025
Lucas, Diller insists, was a sanctimonious hypocrite.
—Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 19 May 2025
The sanctimonious proto-Communist bait of Good Night, and Good Luck
Activist-actor George Clooney confirms his hyphenate status by adapting his vapid 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck for the Broadway stage.
—Armond White, National Review, 30 Apr. 2025
The sanctimonious Trudeau, a lightning rod for the anti-woke backlash that exists even in Canada, resigned.
—Mohammed Soliman, MSNBC Newsweek, 28 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for sanctimonious
Cite this Entry
“Sanctimonious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sanctimonious. Accessed 10 Jun. 2025.
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