self-made

English

Etymology

From self- +‎ made.

Adjective

self-made (not comparable)

1. (of a person) Having achieved success by one's own efforts, with little to no support from family members and others.

   Synonyms: self-structured, self-formed

   Antonyms: nepotistic, cronyish

   My father was the quintessential self-made man.

   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter LV, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 531:

     There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like him, but self-unmade—all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for most things that I could think of.

   • 2021 November 9, Max Harrison-Caldwell, quoting Peter Sokolowski, “Words Full of Sound and Fury”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     “These were people who were self-made, and self-made people made up their own words,” Mr. Sokolowski added.

2. (of a thing) Made by oneself instead of bought or taken over.

   Near-synonyms: homemade, homebrew, homespun, handmade

   • 1905, Fielding Yost, Football for Player and Spectator:

     Originally each school was bound only by self-made rules.

Usage notes

Occasionally a wag will point out that a thing that one made oneself (for example, one's own packed lunch) is not self-made in the sense that "it made itself" [no, of course it didn't]. That the response to the objection is so obvious explains why the objection is usually viewed as overliteral and overpedantic; it is natural that idiom often doesn't follow overliteral logic.

Translations

having achieved success by one's own efforts

• Finnish: itse uransa luonut, oman onnensa seppä
• Greek: αυτοδημιούργητος (el) (aftodimioúrgitos)
• Italian: venuto dal niente, fatto da sé
• Polish: zawdzięczający wszystko samemu sobie
• Russian: обя́занный всем самому́ себе́ (objázannyj vsem samomú sebé)

made by oneself

• Dutch: zelfgemaakt (nl)
• Finnish: omatekoinen, itse tehty
• German: selbstgemacht (de)
• Russian: самоде́льный (ru) (samodélʹnyj)
• Spanish: casero (es), hecho a mano, hecho en casa
• Ukrainian: саморо́бний (samoróbnyj)