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self-understanding

British  

noun

  1. the ability to understand one's own actions

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s “The Mattering Instinct” is an attempt to place human self-understanding on a new footing.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 9, 2026

The point of opening the caskets of our forgotten history is to foster the self-understanding necessary to empower the work of creating a future that upholds the democratic creed that “all men are created equal.”

From Salon • Oct. 13, 2024

The story of identity formation is deeply personal, based on the sedimentation of experience, self-understanding, and the ascriptions of others.

From Slate • Jul. 5, 2023

Unfortunately, the last section of “The Age of Guilt,” titled “Embrace the Ideals,” takes a very odd turn away from the Freudian effort at increased freedom through deeper, if incomplete, self-understanding.

From Washington Post • Apr. 27, 2023

O light eternal who only in thyself abidest, only thyself dost understand, and to thyself, self-understood, self-understanding, turnest love and smiling!

From Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" A Course of Lectures Delivered Before the Student Body of the New York State College for Teachers, Albany, 1919, 1920 by Slattery, John T. (John Theodore)