self-consequence

[ self-kon-si-kwuhns, self- ]

noun

1. self-important character or quality; self-importance.

Word History and Origins

Origin of self-consequence¹

First recorded in 1770–80

Example Sentences

She had high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attentions of the officers, to whom her uncle’s good dinners and her own easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance.

From Literature

Never, even in the company of his dear friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations at Rosings, had she seen him so desirous to please, so free from self-consequence or unbending reserve, as now, when no importance could result from the success of his endeavours, and when even the acquaintance of those to whom his attentions were addressed would draw down the ridicule and censure of the ladies both of Netherfield and Rosings.

From Literature

Lydia, played by Julia Sawalha in the classic BBC TV drama, is the youngest of the Bennet sisters and described as a “self-willed and careless” 15-year-old with “high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attention of officers, to whom her uncle’s good dinners, and her own easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance”.

From The Guardian

People hobbled out on crutches and quitted sick-beds to say how "glad they were;" mere acquaintances most of them, who felt a strange mysterious sort of self-consequence in fancying themselves for the moment the friends of Peter Barrington, the millionnaire!

From Project Gutenberg

To judge of our jealousy, our sensibility, our high notions of responsibility, on this score, only consider if a single individual lets fall a solitary remark implying a doubt of the wit, the sense, the courage of a friend—how it staggers us—how it makes us shake with fear—how it makes us call up all our eloquence and airs of self-consequence in his defence, lest our partiality should be supposed to have blinded our perceptions, and we should be regarded as the dupes of a mistaken admiration.

From Project Gutenberg