Humpty Dumptyish

Adjective

Humpty Dumptyish (comparative more Humpty Dumptyish, superlative most Humpty Dumptyish)

1. Resembling or characteristic of the nursery-rhyme character Humpty Dumpty.
   • 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...1907 May 1, “Humpty Dumpty. A short cantata for children. By H[enry] Walford Davies.”, in The Musical Times, volume XLVIII, number 771, London: Novello and Company, Limited; New York, N.Y.: The H....
   • 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.1953 July 4, “Breaking Mr [Daniel Alden] Reed”, in The Economist, New York, N.Y., →ISSN, →OCLC, American Survey, page 24, column 1
2. Relating to Humpty Dumptyism in language.
   • 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.1963, Peter Ure, “[William Butler] Yeats and the Critics”, in Yeats (Writers and Critics; 31), Edinburgh; London: Oliver and Boyd, →OCLC, page 121