Pronounced: MYTH-uh-mane, noun/adj
Notes: Another word I didn’t recognize
Yesterday’s word
The word Pecksniffian means “unctuously hypocritical; sanctimonious”
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
Background / Comments
As I noted yesterday, I recognized our word; I knew it came from a character created by Charles Dickens — but that’s all I knew. The character (Seth Pecksniff) comes from the novel Martin Chuzzlewit (published in 1843): he would brag about his virtue and preach morality, but he was a selfish, deceptive scoundrel. It didn’t take long after the novel was out before the word started being used as a synonym of “hypocrite”. I especially like the phrase “unctuously hypocritical” in the definition above.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 