Meanings
- derogatoryuncountableSmug 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
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”.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Podsnappery. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Podsnappery
“Podsnappery.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Podsnappery. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Podsnappery,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Podsnappery.
Source: Podsnappery on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.