Tartuffe
/tɑːˈtuːf
/noun literary or humorous
A religious hypocrite, or a hypocritical pretender to excellence of any kind.I've seen some Tartuffes you would not let through the front door....
- We are all too aware of the Tartuffes of our day using the façade of religion to further their own selfish aims.
- But neither were they Tartuffes in caftans: for them, like their Arab predecessors, the erotic and the spiritual coexisted along a delicate continuum.
Derivatives
Tartufferie
- Critics have dismissed these exercises as so much Tartuffery.
- Every people has its own Tartuffery and calls it its virtues.
- It will be damn hard to find global solutions while you still have global Tartufferie.
Origin
From the name of the principal character (a religious hypocrite) in Molière's Tartuffe (1664).