Humpty Dumptyism
The practice of insisting that a word means whatever one wishes it to.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Using Humpty Dumptyism makes it impossible to have a clear conversation.”
“You practice Humpty Dumptyism when you invent your own meanings for common words.”
“The politician relied on Humpty Dumptyism to redefine common terms, leaving the audience confused about his actual policy goals.”
“The lawyer accused the witness of Humpty Dumptyism after he claimed that the word 'stolen' actually meant 'borrowed' in his personal vocabulary.”
“By engaging in blatant Humpty Dumptyism, the author forced his own subjective definitions onto the text, effectively stripping the original language of its established meaning.”
From Humpty Dumpty + -ism, after the fictional character in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, who, when asked what he means by glory, replies, "I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" Alice protests that this isn't the meaning of glory and Humpty Dumpty replies, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean——neither more nor less."
Last updated August 10, 2026