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selfish
[ sel-fish ]
adjective
- devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.
Synonyms: self-interested, stingy, parsimonious, illiberal, egoistic, self-seeking
- characterized by or manifesting concern or care only for oneself:
selfish motives.
selfish
/ ˈsɛlfɪʃ /
adjective
- chiefly concerned with one's own interest, advantage, etc, esp to the total exclusion of the interests of others
- relating to or characterized by self-interest
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Derived Forms
- ˈselfishness, noun
- ˈselfishly, adverb
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Other Words From
- self·ish·ly adverb
- self·ish·ness noun
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Compare Meanings
How does selfish compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
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Example Sentences
For her postdoctoral work, Zanders focused on a particular type of dustup caused by some selfish genes — genes that propagate themselves even if it hurts the host.
The most effective strategy was the selfish strategy where everyone tried to go as fast as possible.
Their response to the pandemic and this great work that pharma people are doing has reminded many of their capacities and how they can be helpful to the world—as opposed to the industry being viewed as kind of selfish and uncooperative.
The next day the mayor called the partiers “absolutely reckless and selfish,” and she closed the beach parking to make an example of them.
I feel selfish in a sense because I’m one of the lucky ones.
Emetophobia tends to compromise my relationships, turning me into a selfish jerk.
Self-marriage is the ultimate brand extension of a self-obsessed, selfish populus.
Scrooge is still with us, not just in print but embodied in the cold hearts and selfish calculations of misanthropes everywhere.
What should have been a moment of reckoning for a selfish, serial liar instead ended with us pitying him.
What if an affair is a process of positive self-discovery rather than selfish carnal impulses?
The selfish mother is one of the most condemned cultural tropes in our modern society.
Legislative bodies are selfish, and they rarely sacrifice for others.
When I saw the woman to my right clearly in a state of anxiety, I took an almost selfish solace in her discomfort.
“Figure skating felt very selfish to me, so public service has just felt like this total calling for me,” Kwan says.
A part of him felt selfish for having healthy kidneys of his own.
And the songs themselves are becoming increasingly Selfish, so to speak.
I was invited to present a BBC Horizon TV documentary on The Selfish Gene, but was too shy to do so.
Quahog is a rich world full of despicable, immoral, and implausibly selfish characters.
As a college student, I remember reading his seminal book, The Selfish Gene, with an equal measure of acceptance and despair.
I think in order to write The Selfish Gene it required Hamilton.
Dawkins also spends considerable ink in this memoir recalling how he came to write The Selfish Gene, his first book.
I had pretty much laid out the rhetoric of The Selfish Gene in 1966, a full 10 years before the book was written.
Children without siblings to share with, Sandler tells us, are not as lonely, selfish, or spoiled as we were once told.
Some of them are selfish: getting on the front page, making a name for ourselves, showing everyone how smart we are.
However, they also resemble each other in their flawed childish and selfish ways.
His ambition is a purely selfish one, while mine is distinctly benevolent.
No, no,” added Mr. Pickwick more cheerfully, “it would be selfish and ungrateful.
One would imagine, to hear these (p. 171) people talk, that smoking was the only selfish indulgence in the world.
"I fear, for my part, it is only a very selfish pleasure," he said a trifle unctuously.
Let no opportunity be missed of exposing the true character of the vile and selfish agitators of the Anti-corn-law league.
Real happiness may lie in forgetting that love is selfish, and in overlooking the bitter in the sweet.
Such conduct is not only excessively ill-bred, but intensely selfish.
Did you forgive me, for the sorrow and suffering which my selfish love had drawn down upon that innocent head.
I had been selfish enough to ask that she link herself to my narrow life, and she had looked at me clear in the eye.
His judges were not likely to feel compassion for him; and they all had strong selfish reasons to vote against him.
For once in her selfish and vulgar mind the countess-dowager felt a feeling akin to fear.
Minds which have any claim to greatness are capable of divesting themselves of selfish considerations.
The objectors consider it to be a most selfish doctrine without any warrant in the civilised code of morality.
The pleasure is perfectly innocent; it is not a selfish pleasure either, for I shall enjoy it to the full as much as you will.
He may be a friend of yours—he may be a dear friend—but in your heart you know that he is both unscrupulous and selfish.
The man had no conscience, and he was almost incomparably selfish, but he was capable of loving, and he did love.
The seigneurs imposed servitude, the friars preached resignation, and the people of Gaul became cowardly, selfish and cruel.
I am afraid he is thoroughly selfish, and Josephine is too close a copy of him to suit my fancy—but why think or speak of them?
She was in a fever, poor child, and from no selfish motive assuredly, to hear more about the mysterious house.
Yes, I have coaxed him to stay forever; but I had to propose to the selfish being before he would promise at all.
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