Meanings
alternative Humpty-Dumptyism
- idiomaticuncountableThe practice of insisting that a word means whatever one wishes it to.
"It seems to be saying one or both of two things. One is that any score that comes out of any procedure that purports to measure intelligence is a value of the scale, intelligence. If so, this would be Humpty Dumptyism."
2003, J. A. Keats, Norman Cliff, Ordinal Measurement in the Behavioral Sciences, page 31
Origin
From Humpty Dumpty + -ism, after the fictional character in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, who, when asked what he means by glory, replies, "I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" Alice protests that this isn't the meaning of glory and Humpty Dumpty replies, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean——neither more nor less."
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Humpty Dumptyism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Humpty%20Dumptyism
“Humpty Dumptyism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Humpty%20Dumptyism. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Humpty Dumptyism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Humpty%20Dumptyism.
Source: Humpty Dumptyism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.