Word.ws English Dictionary

Podsnappery

Podsnappery noun: smug self-satisfaction and a lack of interest in the affairs of others.

Noun

Podsnappery (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory) Smug self-satisfaction and a lack of interest in the affairs of others.
    • No doubt in particular contexts certain of these judgments might be sustained. But what is evident, wherever such judgments obtrude, is the loosening of emotional control and the displacement of analysis by commination. There is, about them, the air of an inverted Podsnappery.1965, E. P. Thompson, “The Peculiarities of the English”, in The Socialist Register

Origin of Podsnappery

From Podsnap + -ery, referring to a character Mr. Podsnap in Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865), in which this word was also coined. Podsnap was “conscious that he set a brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all other things, with himself”.

Questions about Podsnappery

What does Podsnappery mean?
Podsnappery means smug self-satisfaction and a lack of interest in the affairs of others.
What part of speech is Podsnappery?
Podsnappery is a noun.

Words near Podsnappery in the dictionary

  1. Podrazas
  2. Podritske
  3. pods
  4. podslurping
  5. Podsnap
  6. Podsnappery
  7. Podsnappish
  8. Podsnaps
  9. podsol
  10. podsolic
  11. podsolics

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Podsnappery (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: “Podsnappery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/podsnappery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.