selfishness

English

Etymology

From selfish +‎ -ness.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɛl.fɪʃ.nəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: self‧ish‧ness

Noun

selfishness (countable and uncountable, plural selfishnesses)

1. The quality of being selfish, the condition of putting one's own interests before those of others.

   Antonym: selflessness

   • 1988 May 3, Martin E. Marty, “FRONT-PAGE RELIGION”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     This common faith or set of aspirations, he added, could also help Americans transcend their selfishnesses and follies and promote a world civil religion given to justice and hope.

   • 2014 February 17, Dan Callahan, “Looking Recap: Versatility”, in Vulture‎^[2]:

     And he knows that Patrick can afford to complain about his mother’s minor selfishness but he cannot afford to engage with the idea of his own father at all.

Hyponyms

• hedonism, Epicureanism, Cyrenaicism

Derived terms

• rational selfishness

Translations

quality of being selfish

• Arabic: أَنَانِيَّة f (ʔanāniyya)
• Bengali: স্বার্থপরতা (bn) (śarthoprota)
• Bulgarian: себичност (bg) f (sebičnost)
• Catalan: egoisme (ca) m
• Czech: sobeckost f
• Dutch: zelfheid (nl), eigenheid (nl)
• Esperanto: memcentreco, memismo, egoismo (eo)
• Finnish: itsekeskeisyys (fi), itsekkyys (fi)
• French: égocentrisme (fr) m, égoïsme (fr) m
• German: Egoismus (de) m, Selbstsucht (de) f
• Hebrew: אנוכיות
• Ido: egoismo (io)
• Interlingua: egoismo
• Irish: leithleachas m
• Italian: egoismo (it) m
• Korean: 이기심(利己心) (igisim)
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: خۆپەسەندی (xopesendî)

• Ladino:

  Roman: egoismo

• Lithuanian: savanaudiškumas m
• Macedonian: себичност f (sebičnost)
• Malayalam: സ്വാർത്ഥത (svāṟtthata)
• Maori: kaipuku
• Polish: egoizm (pl) m, samolubność (pl) f, samolubstwo (pl) n
• Portuguese: egoísmo (pt)
• Romanian: egoism (ro) n
• Russian: эгои́зм (ru) m (egoízm), себялю́бие (ru) n (sebjaljúbije)
• Spanish: egoísmo (es) m
• Turkish: bencillik (tr), egoistlik (tr), hodbinlik (tr) (archaic)
• Welsh: hunanoldeb m
• Yiddish: עגאָיִזם m (egoizm)