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Humpty Dumpty

[ huhmp-tee duhmp-tee ]

noun

  1. an egg-shaped character in a Mother Goose nursery rhyme that fell off a wall and could not be put together again.
  2. (sometimes lowercase) something that has been damaged severely and usually irreparably.


humpty dumpty

/ ˈhʌmptɪ ˈdʌmptɪ /

noun

  1. a short fat person
  2. a person or thing that once overthrown or broken cannot be restored or mended


“Humpty Dumpty”

  1. A nursery rhyme:

    Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;

    Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

    All the king's horses and all the king's men

    Couldn't put Humpty together again.



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Word History and Origins

Origin of Humpty Dumpty1

Rhyming compound based on humpty; hump, -ed 3, -y 2

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Word History and Origins

Origin of Humpty Dumpty1

C18: after the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty

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Example Sentences

On the album’s cover, his jigsawed visage lies in the grass — either a heartbroken Humpty Dumpty or pop music’s missing piece.

Jackie gently pulled her pajamas back on as a Humpty Dumpty cartoon played on one of three TVs.

A word, Humpty Dumpty told Alice, means whatever I want it to mean.

Near that was another poster marked “read-a-rhyme” and featuring Humpty Dumpty.

I was seven the first time my mother mailed one of my stories to a magazine (Humpty Dumpty, now defunct).

The Obama team has been working closely with Riyadh to try to put the Yemeni Humpty-Dumpty back together.

As Humpty Dumpty once said, per Lewis Carroll: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

"Humpty-Dumpty," cried others; and there was a famous uproar.

Humpty-Dumpty fell downstairs, and yet he married a princess.

The riddle-rhyme of "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" is, in one form or other, a favorite throughout Europe.

The word Humpty-Dumpty is allied to hump and to dump, words which express roundness and shortness.

The meaning of shortness and roundness is expressed also by the name of the foreign equivalents of Humpty-Dumpty.

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