noun
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a person who is preoccupied with his own interests; a selfish person
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a conceited person; egotist
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ethics a person who lives by the values of egoism
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of egoist
From the French word égoïste, dating back to 1775–85. See ego, -ist
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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.
See Examples For:
Having killed off the kernel of sweetness at the heart of the young man who’d written “Goodbye, Columbus,” he was free to explore the writer not just as egoist, but as stag-on-the-make, as bachelor-king.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2021
But she is also an insufferable egoist, a masochistic martyr and, when it comes right down to it, a pragmatist who is less innocent of worldly dealings than she lets on.
From New York Times ● Jul. 15, 2015
Unlike her two front-of-stage colleagues, McVie isn’t an apparent eccentric or egoist, but rather an understated craftsperson of plaintive easy listening and English soul.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 1, 2014
The egoist doesn’t care about the public interest.
From Forbes ● Sep. 22, 2014
Systematically to ignore these relations is to act as I should act if I were an egoist in the extremest sense and held that there were no consciousness in the world except my own.
From A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution by C. M. Williams
This demand gives the lie to a common misconception of liberalism, namely, that it is an ethic of insouciant self-indulgence, a politics for blithe egoists.
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2023
And so you get blowhards and sycophants, egoists and ignoramuses mixed in among those just striving to be dedicated public servants.
From Washington Post ● May 10, 2022
“Austria cannot afford any egoists right now,” he said.
From New York Times ● Oct. 9, 2021
It is arduous even pretending to be interested in self-absorbed egoists.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 24, 2018
The trustees of civilization became national egoists, subordinating all others to their own ascendancy.
From A Short History of English Liberalism by Walter Lyon Blease
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
