self-abnegation

English

Etymology

self- +‎ abnegation

Noun

self-abnegation (countable and uncountable, plural self-abnegations)

1. The denial or invalidation of one's own needs, interests, etc. for the sake of another's; the setting aside of self-interest.

   Synonyms: self-denial, self-sacrifice

   • 1656, Edward Reyner, Rules for the Government of the Tongue, London: Thomas Newberry, p. 324,^[1]

     [Self commendation] should bee accompanied with Self-abnegation, or a renouncing of all Self-conceit, Self-sufficiency, Self seeking, or Self worthiness; to prick the bladder of pride in us.

   • 1926, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Land of Mist, New York: A. L. Burt, Chapter 14, p. 239,^[2]

     You understand, of course, that it is only by serving and self-abnegation that we advance in the higher world."

   • 1934, D. H. Lawrence, “The Old Adam” in Keith Sagar (ed.), The Mortal Coil and Other Stories, Penguin, 1971, pp. 84-85,^[3]

     She must no longer allow herself to hope for anything for herself. The rest of her life must be spent in self-abnegation: she must seek for no sympathy, must ask for no grace in love, no grace and harmony in living. Henceforward, as far as her own desires went, she was dead.

   • 2006, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, Chapter 8, p. 231,^[4]

     The problem was that the Ruler never let anyone know what was expected of him to retain his place of honor. Even humility and self-abnegation, however abject, were not enough to prevent one’s downfall.

2. (countable) An act of self-denial.
   • 1879, Herbert Spencer, The Data of Ethics, New York: Hurst, Chapter 14, p. 292,^[5]

     […] self-abnegations often repeated imply on the part of the actor a tacit ascription of relative selfishness to others who profit by the self-abnegations.

   • 1922, Coningsby Dawson, The Vanishing Point, New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, Chapter 4, p. 149,^[6]

     There was something monstrous about his self-abnegations. Perhaps he denied himself the things for which he did not care. He wanted to seem nobler than any one else.

   • 1989, John Updike, “Fast Art” in Alan R. Pratt (ed.), The Critical Response to Andy Warhol, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997, p. 196,^[7]

     In one of his first self-abnegations he [Andy Warhol] induced her [his mother] to sign his works, and write his captions, in her own clumsy but clear handwriting.

Related terms

• self-abnegatory

Translations

Translations

• Bulgarian: себеотрицание (bg) n (sebeotricanie)
• Dutch: zelfverloochening (nl) m,, zelfontzegging m

• Irish: féindiúltú m