adjective
- of the nature of hypocrisy, or pretense of having virtues, beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually possess: The parent who has a “do what I say and not what I do” attitude can appear hypocritical to a child.
- possessing the characteristics of hypocrisy: Isn’t a politician hypocritical for talking about human dignity while voting against reasonable social programs?
adj.1540s (implied in hypocritically), from hypocritic, which was used in the same sense, + -al (1). Middle English used simple hypocrite as the adjective (c.1400) as well as the noun.