navel-gazing
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of navel-gazing
First recorded in 1955–60; navel ( def. ) + gaz(e) ( def. ) + -ing 1 ( def. ); perhaps from Hours With the Mystics (1856) by Robert Alfred Vaughan, English Congregationalist minister and author (1823–57), “...if a man shut himself up… turning his thoughts inward, gazing towards his navel..., he would at length behold a divine glory….”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But you shouldn’t expect your children to be lying around all day, navel-gazing, or working 12-hour shifts in a South American lithium mine.
From Barron's ● Mar. 27, 2026
In its short history, Wikipedia has had its fair share of navel-gazing controversies—an entry detailing them has almost 400 footnotes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2025
“The idealism of the 1960s was yielding to the materialism of the 1980s, a new preoccupation with the navel-gazing, ego-stroking life,” Grynbaum writes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2025
Jamil admitted that anorexia had made her "an exhausted, boring, navel-gazing obsessive person" in her teens and early 20s.
From BBC ● May 30, 2024
His televised assault on Chris Rock transformed him from a box-office hero into a navel-gazing multimillionaire lacking impulse control.
From Salon ● Oct. 15, 2023
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
