sanctimonious
adjective

- making a show of being morally superior to other people

- making a hypocritical show of religious devotion, piety, righteousness, etc.; affecting an appearance of sanctity; holier-than-thou

- hypocritically pious or devout; making a show of being morally better than others

Cambridge Dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster

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WORD ORIGIN

From Latin sanctimonia meaning "sanctity, holiness" (from sanctus "holy, sacred"), combined with the suffix -ous. The word entered English in the early 17th century initially meaning "holy, sacred" without negative connotation. By the 1630s, it had acquired its current pejorative sense of "making a hypocritical show of holiness."

The shift from positive to negative reflects a particularly English Protestant suspicion of outward displays of piety. The Puritans, despite their reputation for moral strictness, were deeply skeptical of people who talked too much about their own virtue. They considered excessive religious display as evidence of spiritual emptiness rather than genuine faith.

The -monious ending links it to words like "ceremonious" and "parsimonious," all suggesting excessive or affected behaviour.

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DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO!

1. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
The couple regularly lectures the public about climate change, carbon footprints, and environmental responsibility while frequently using private jets for personal travel. They've given speeches at climate conferences and encouraged others to limit their family size for environmental reasons, while maintaining a lifestyle that produces vastly more emissions than average citizens. The perceived gap between their public preaching and private behaviour has drawn repeated criticism.

2. Al Gore
The former Vice President became the face of climate activism with "An Inconvenient Truth," winning a Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness about global warming. Yet his own Tennessee mansion reportedly consumed more electricity in one year than the average American home uses in 21 years. He's been photographed traveling extensively via private jet while urging ordinary people to reduce their carbon footprints. When confronted, he's defended his energy use by purchasing carbon offsets—essentially paying to maintain his lifestyle while telling others to change theirs.

3. Gwyneth Paltrow
Through her Goop empire, she positions herself as a wellness and lifestyle guru offering guidance on "clean living," expensive detox treatments, and exclusive health products. Yet she's been repeatedly criticized for promoting scientifically dubious (sometimes dangerous) health claims while living in extraordinary wealth that's completely disconnected from her audience. She'll recommend $200 vitamin supplements and $15,000 gold-plated vibrators as "accessible wellness" while seeming oblivious to how out-of-touch her advice sounds to ordinary people.

Public debates show the same pattern again and again: audiences respond first to tone, then to content. Messages framed as shared observations travel further than those framed as moral conclusions.

Helga. & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS


acting holier than thou (like God's gift), censorious, condescending, didactic, do as I say not as I do, goody-goody, high-and-mighty, holier than the Pope, holier-than-thou, hypocritical, imperious, in judgment of others, judgmental, looking down from on high (down one's nose), moral grandstanding, moralistic, moralizing, nose in the air, on a high horse, over-earnest, patronising, Pharisaical, pietistic, pious, playing the saint, pointing fingers, pontificating, practicing moral superiority, preach water and drink wine, preachy, preaching from the pulpit, prim, priggish, prude-like, pulling rank morally, putting on airs of righteousness, righteous-posing, sanctified, SANCTIMONIOUS, self-important, self-righteous, sermonising, sitting in judgment, smug, smugly moral, straight-laced, superior, talking the talk but not walking the walk, too good for this world, unctuous, virtue-signalling, wearing one's halo too tight

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QUOTE

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
— Terry Pratchett

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