Word.ws English Dictionary

Heepishness

Heepishness noun: fawning, cloying servility and obsequiousness.

Noun

Heepishness (uncountable)

  1. Fawning, cloying servility and obsequiousness.
    • The stories circulated about the measures taken for the Plague were, as Professor Gokhlee admitted in his apology, which we have to-day the advantage of reading in its full Heepishness, a mere pack of lies.1897 October 15, “Reviews: The English Mail Papers”, in The North-China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette, page 693
    • But then there arose a competitor in workaholic Heepishness: Alexander Haig.1983 June 26, Anthony Lewis, “The Kissinger Lesson”, in The New York Times, page E21

Forms of Heepishness

alternative formUriah Heepishness

Origin of Heepishness

From Heepish + -ness: From the Dickens character Uriah Heep, noted for his cloying humility, obsequiousness, and insincerity, the stereotypical yes man.

Phrases with Heepishness

Questions about Heepishness

What does Heepishness mean?
Heepishness means fawning, cloying servility and obsequiousness.
What part of speech is Heepishness?
Heepishness is a noun.

Words near Heepishness in the dictionary

  1. Heenfaru
  2. HEENT
  3. Heep
  4. Heepish
  5. Heepishly
  6. Heepishness
  7. Heeps
  8. Heepses
  9. Heepster
  10. Heepsters
  11. heer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Heepishness (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Heepishness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/heepishness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.