Lexic.us

Definition of Selfishness

1. Noun. Stinginess resulting from a concern for your own welfare and a disregard of others.

Definition of Selfishness

1. n. The quality or state of being selfish; exclusive regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those of others.

Definition of Selfishness

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

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Selfishness

1. [n -ES]

Medical Definition of Selfishness

1. The quality or state of being selfish; exclusive regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those of others. "Selfishness,- a vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbors it, and, as such, condemned by self-love." (Sir J. Mackintosh) Synonym: See Self-love. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Selfishness

Literary usage of Selfishness

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Outlines of Systematic Theology: Designed for the Use of Theological Students by Augustus Hopkins Strong (1908)
"Sin ax Selfishness. We hold the essential principle of sin to be selfishness. By selfishness we mean not simply the exaggerated self-love which constitutes ..."

2. Getting the Most Out of Business: Observations of the Application of the by E. St. Elmo Lewis (1916)
"There is a higher selfishness which found its expression in the life of ... It was that selfishness of high ideals which may bring misery to the body, ..."

3. Human Nature and the Social Order by Charles Horton Cooley (1922)
"... then what are those things which we call egotism and selfishness,* and which are so commonly regarded as objectionable? The answer to this appears to be ..."

4. The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine, Thomas, Edward Bouverie Pusey, William Benham (1909)
"CHAPTER XXXII Of self-denial and the casting away all selfishness " MY Son, thou canst not possess perfect liberty unless thou altogether deny thyself. ..."

5. View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages by Henry Hallam (1837)
"An early instance ol that conflicting selfishness of belligerants and neutrals, which was destined to aggravate the animosities and misfortunes of our own ..."

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