Pushmi-pullyu
Definition, Meaning & Examples
Part of speech noun
Quick meaning: Pushmi-pullyu is a noun meaning A person who behaves in a conflicting or contradictory manner.
Meaning
A person who behaves in a conflicting or contradictory manner.
More Meanings
- Conflicting or contradictory.
- in teleosemantics, being a representation with both indicative and imperative content.
Example Sentences
It's one of the most characteristic behavior patterns of human beings, this pushmepullyou approach to life. We say one thing and do another […]
This is the age of the Cry-Bully, a hideous hybrid of victim and victor, weeper and walloper. They are everywhere, these duplicit Pushmi-Pullyus of the personal and the political
They don't want some sort of hopeless compromise, some perpetual pushme-pullyou arrangement in which we stay half-in and half-out in a political no man's land - with no more ministers round the table in Brussels and yet forced to obey EU laws.
What […] are the steps from […] the sort of inarticulate pushmi-pullyu comprehensions the bee has and the dim sort of pushmi-pullyu comprehension that mediates responses to behavior releasers, to articulate, well-differentiated, and uncommitted human beliefs and desires […]?
Word Forms
- pushmi-pullyus
- pushme-pullyou
Related Words
Related dictionary entries include pushme-pullyou, motley, contradicting, doubleness, mix up, double-trouble.
Related Dictionary Tools
Sources & Attribution
FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.