hypocrite is followed by what word?

Question

Could a native english teacher tell me which of these are correct? I've gotten different answers.

She's more hypocrite towards me than before.
She acts more like a hypocrite towards me than before.
She's more hypocritical towards/of me than before. She hates me and yet she talks to me.

He is very hypocritical of you.
He is very hypocritical towards you.
He is a hypocritie towards you.
He is a hypocritie with you.

Thank you

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

You are trying to use extremely rare words in natural sentences. This word is so rare that there are only 20-some examples of the adjective form in the American Corpus (usage since 1990) and absolutely none of the noun form.

Here are a couple of the sample sentences:
In one sense, he was trying to make hypercritical nit-pickers of us.
She is hypercritical of her performance.

In formal writing, there are more references. In the Victorian era, the use of Latinate inkhorn terms was considered the mark of an educated man, and that prideful attitude still persists today. Examples:
Shake not your head, lift not your finger, exquisitely hypocritical reader; you can deceive me in nothing
The morality and attitudes of Victorian England are often condemned as intrinsically hypocritical.
Well, it was sparklier than anything I own so it's a bit hypocritical of everyone to turn their noses up at my love of shiny things.
Its hypocrisy comes clear as soon as we isolate the model and convention of what is written there: it's that most self-deceived and hypocritical of all rhetorics, the Christian confession of one's sin before ***.

I suggest that you use the far more common "overly critical"
He is overly critical of you.

Alc24 · Answer

Alphecca,

How would you express this then?

Being a hypocrite isn't black or white so to speak. You can be a hypocrite with or toward someone and not someone else?

He acts like a hypocrite towards me. He's not a hypocrite towards anyone else.
He is a hypocrite towards me. He's not a hypocrite towards anyone else.

He's hypocritical towards me and not towards her.

Here is what Doctor D had said that I found. What do you think Alphecca?

Alphecca, Could you tell me please if this is natural
Being a hypocrite isn't black or white so to speak. (Can you use BLACK or WHITE like this and SO TO SPEAK?

Thank you so much for the help

RandomGuy · Answer

AlpheccaStarsYou are trying to use extremely rare words in natural sentences. This word is so rare that there are only 20-some examples of the adjective form in the American Corpus (usage since 1990) and absolutely none of the noun form.
Here are a couple of the sample sentences:
In one sense, he was trying to make hypercritical nit-pickers of us.
She is hypercritical of her performance.

You've lost me. Neither hypocrite nor hypocritical is rare by any means, and the OP did not use the word hypercritical once.

She's more hypocritical towards/of me than before. She hates me and yet she talks to me.

It is clear that he had the word hypocritical in mind.

alc24Could a native english teacher tell me which of these are correct? I've gotten different answers.

Hi, alc24,

The words hypocrite and hypocritical are not used these ways. You can say She is critical of me, but not She is hypocritical of me. No one really uses the word these ways.

As Doctor D suggested, you can use hypocrite this way:

Doctor DIf using "hypocrite" (which is a name), then say something like "He acts like a hypocrite towards me." Or "He is a hypocrite in the way he acts towards me."

Here are some more common uses of the word:

Someone who censures others for child abuse yet beats his own child is a hypocrite.
It's hypocritical to claim to approve of homosexuality yet disapprove of gay marriage.

hypocrite is followed by what word?

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