Uriah Heepish

English

Etymology

Uriah Heep +‎ -ish: From the Dickens character Uriah Heep, noted for his cloying humility, obsequiousness, and insincerity, the stereotypical yes man.

Adjective

Uriah Heepish (comparative more Uriah Heepish, superlative most Uriah Heepish)

1. Exhibiting cloying, insincere obsequiousness.
   • 1897 August, Paul E. Jenks, “Coasting the Mediterranean Awheel”, in Outing, volume XXX, number 5, page 462:

     Flunky opens the door, his face wreathed in a Uriah-Heepish smile of servility.

   • 1915, Jean Webster, Dear Enemy, Grosset & Dunlap, page 77:

     I am never going to adopt the Uriah Heepish attitude toward trustees that characterized Mrs. Lippett's manners.

   • 2001, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Face to Face: A Reader in the World, Beacon Press, page 18:

     In the unlikely event that he read off-the-cuff, he couldn't have known that the clumsy schoolboy Widmerpool, at first so Uriah Heepish in his creepy false humility, "the embodiment of thankless labour and unsatisfied ambition," would turn out to be a monstrous and dangerous hypocrite.

   • 2005, James Reston, Jr., Galileo: A Life (Beard Books, 2005) p. 152

     Until now the friar had appeared to be a scheming, cowering, Uriah Heepish type, ashamed of his controversial sermon, terrified of its implications for his future, ready to be used anew by the papal legates, just as he had been used by the Pigeon League.