pharisaical

comparative more pharisaical · superlative most pharisaical · alternative Pharisaical

1. Of or pertaining to the Pharisees.First known use 16th c.
2. ChristianityEmphasizing the observance of ritual or practice over the meaning; self-righteous, hypocritical.First known use 16th c.

   Thus Aurobindo Ghose stated that the puritanical, pharisaical British conquered in the name of liberty and usurped under the cloak of altruism.

   2012, Piers Brendon, ‘Beginning the Dissent’, Literary Review, volume 401

   1 more example

   Perhaps no man in the world had less than Douglas the pharisaical precision of Methodism; he was totally averse to their sudden and evanescent flights of enthusiasm, their frantic ravings of intemperate zeal in devotion, as if invoking a vindictive and implacable Deity;[…]

   1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XVIII, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 235