self-containment

[ self-kuhn-teyn-muhnt, self- ]

noun

1. the state of being self-contained.

Word History and Origins

Origin of self-containment¹

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

This aim of self-containment, back turned to the street outside, has long put big hotel lobbies out of favor with urbanists.

From Slate

As Shiv, Snook is all tiny trembles and self-containment, but as Anna, her performance is grander, wider, far more open; this Anna is reckless in ways Shiv would never be.

From New York Times

In the climax, as she watches her love die in her arms, her self-containment fractures.

From New York Times

Perhaps the most touching works in the Philadelphia show are those that suggest the longer arc of Scully’s career, from purity to messiness, rigidity to freedom, self-containment to self-expression.

From Washington Post

The goal is not world revolution or world conquest, in other words, but civilizational self-containment — a unification of “our own history, culture and spiritual space,” as Putin put it in his war speech — with certain erring, straying children dragged unwillingly back home.

From New York Times