Why this word is great
TARTUFFE — [Noun] A religious hypocrite, especially one who feigns virtue for personal gain. From French tartuffe, from the protagonist Tartuffe (from Italian tartufo, "truffle") in Molière's play Tartuffe (1664), symbolizing hypocrisy. Unlike "sanctimonious" (which flaunts piety like a badge) or "charlatan" (a broad deceiver), a tartuffe cloaks venality in scripture, a wolf in vestments. Picture the unctuous preacher pocketing widow’s coins, the politician citing divine mandate while drafting cruel laws, or the neighbor who judges your sins over whiskey-laced breath—all performances in the theater of moral fraud, where the greatest sin is believing your own act. Hypocrisy is human, but the tartuffe makes it sacrament.