Humpty Dumptyish

Definitions

1. Resembling or characteristic of the nursery-rhyme character Humpty Dumpty.
2. Relating to Humpty Dumptyism in language.

Examples

“The work⟳ is brought to a ‘Couldn’t’ conclusion with ‘Humpty Dumpty’s song,’ for solo and chorus, in which the wall-perched hero ‘falls backwards with a crash⟳ out of sight’ to four very extraordinary looking chords of an exceeding Humpty Dumptyish nature—these crashing chaotic chords ‘are to be played (sfff) simultaneously, by placing both hands and elbows violently on to the keyboard as Humpty Dumpty falls.”

“But Mr Reed may have⟳ done some disservice to his own⟳ cause, for public opinion has had a clearer glimpse than for a long time of the Humpty Dumptyish powers of committee chairmen—“the disintegrate ministry” which governs Congress, as Woodrow Wilson called them.”

“The correspondence with T[homas] Sturge Moore has been edited by Ursula Bridge (1953), and reveals Yeats’s confirmed habit of making a philosophical argument mean⟳ what he wants it to mean⟳ in rather Humpty Dumptyish fashion.”

CEFR level