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^[1], London: Thomas Newberry, page 324:

     [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.

   • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “In which Challenger Meets a Strange Colleague”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

     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, editor, The Mortal Coil and Other Stories‎^[2], Penguin, published 1971, pages 84–85:

     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, chapter 8, in Wizard of the Crow‎^[3], New York: Pantheon, page 231:

     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.

   • 2023 September 18, Zoe Williams, “The booing of the national anthem shows the vulnerability of King Charles’s reign”, in The Guardian‎^[4], →ISSN:

     He [King Charles] lacks, too, that aura of self-abnegation, of having surrendered himself to duty.

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

     […] 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, chapter 4, in The Vanishing Point‎^[6], New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, page 149:

     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, editor, The Critical Response to Andy Warhol‎^[7], Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, published 1997, page 196:

     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
• German: Selbstverleugnung (de) f
• Irish: féindiúltú m