puppyism

plural puppyisms

1. archaiccountableuncountableExtreme meanness or impudence.

   There is a puppyism in infidelity for which I have no patience.

   1847, Thomas Chalmers, sermon

2. countabledatedliteraryuncountableConceit, vanity, or arrogant behaviour, especially that of a pretentious or self-important young man.

   I think him a very handsome young man, and his manners are precisely what I like and approve—so truly the gentleman, without the least conceit or puppyism.

   1816, Jane Austen, Emma

   2 more examples

   Marianne was spared from the troublesome feelings of contempt and resentment, on this impertinent examination of their features, and on the puppyism of his manner in deciding on all the different horrors of the different toothpick-cases presented to his inspection, by remaining unconscious of it all […]

   1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC

   Lounging near the doors, and in remote corners, were various knots of silly young men, displaying various varieties of puppyism and stupidity; amusing all sensible people near them with their folly and conceit; and happily thinking themselves the objects of general admiration—a wise and merciful dispensation which no good man will quarrel with.

   1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers 35