Meanings
comparative more Tappertitian · superlative most Tappertitian
- Similar to the character Simon Tappertit in Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, especially being self-important, passionately conservative and anti-Catholic, and given to big ideas poorly expressed.
This chapter is illiterate, unconsciously Tappertitian. The language is painfully funny.
1912, Alfred Richard Orage, Arthur Moore, The New Age: A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature and Art, page 662 more examples
I have been proof against the garish splendors and alcoholic excitements of the ordinary stage combinations of Tappertitian romance with the police intelligence.
1903, George Bernard Shaw, “Preface”, in Man and SupermanThis astonishing pronunciamento upon the liberty, the art, the culture, and the common sense of England takes place with Tappertitian gravity […]
1967, Ford Madox Ford, The English Review, volume 6, page 703
Origin
From Simon Tappertit + -ian, from a character in Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Tappertitian. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tappertitian
“Tappertitian.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tappertitian. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Tappertitian,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tappertitian.
Source: Tappertitian on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.