📖 Nursery rhyme figure 🥚 Egg character

Humpty Dumpty

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A nursery rhyme character like a large egg who falls from a wall and people cannot fix him

noun
/ˈhʌmpti ˈdʌmpti/

Literature

: Humpty Dumpty

What do you mean, Humpty Dumpty was an egg?
put Humpty Dumpty together again
put Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty together

Examples

I don't see how you can put that Humpty Dumpty back together again.
OK, your phrase is Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
I don't see how you can put that Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Splat me on the table like Humpty Dumpty would.
And today the New York Post compared him to Humpty Dumpty, saying Don, who couldn't build a wall, had a great fall.
In the nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty sat on a high wall before he had his great fall.
After Humpty Dumpty fell, it was said that all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't fix him.
Many children enjoy the story of Humpty Dumpty, who is famously known for sitting on a wall.

Surface Forms

Humpty Dumpty singular

Humpty Dumpties plural

Morphology

Humpty + Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty is a proper name composed of non-lexical elements whose literal parts carry no predictable meaning; the character and the image (an egg who falls from a wall) are cultural/encyclopedic knowledge rather than a compositional inference from the constituents. A B1 learner who knows the constituent forms would not be able to derive the nursery-rhyme character or its backstory without prior exposure, so the expression is idiomatic and name-based rather than transparent.

Etymology

Humpty Dumpty is a nursery rhyme character shown as a large egg who sits on a high wall, falls, and breaks. One popular story says this clear picture of an egg that 'cannot be put back together' is why the name now suggests something fragile or broken that 'cannot be fixed'.