Meaning of Uriah Heepish | Babel Free

Definitions

Exhibiting cloying, insincere obsequiousness.

Examples

“Flunky opens the door, his face wreathed in a Uriah-Heepish smile of servility.”

“I am never going to adopt the Uriah Heepish attitude toward trustees that characterized Mrs. Lippett's manners.”

“In the unlikely event that he read off-the-cuff, he couldn't have known that the clumsy schoolboy Widmerpool, at first so Uriah Heepish in his creepy false humility, "the embodiment of thankless labour and unsatisfied ambition," would turn out to be a monstrous and dangerous hypocrite.”

“Until now the friar had appeared to be a scheming, cowering, Uriah Heepish type, ashamed of his controversial sermon, terrified of its implications for his future, ready to be used anew by the papal legates, just as he had been used by the Pigeon League.”

CEFR level