hubris

[hyoo-bris, hoo-]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR hubris ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.

Also hybris.

Compare sophrosyne.

Origin of hubris

First recorded in 1880–85, hubris is from the Greek word hýbris insolence

Related formshu·bris·tic, adjectivenon·hu·bris·tic, adjectiveun·hu·bris·tic, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for hubris

pretension, audacity, chutzpah, vanity, cockiness, presumption, nerve, cheek, ostentation, pretentiousness, airs, pomposity, brass, insolence, loftiness, disdain, conceitedness, contemptuousness

Examples from the Web for hubris

Contemporary Examples of hubris

He won re-election twice as governor of New York, and had the hubris to run for a fourth term before being defeated in 1994.
Mario Cuomo, a Frustrating Hero to Democrats, Is Dead at 82
Eleanor Clift
January 2, 2015
What were his weaknesses as a military commander: was it hubris?
Napoleon Was a Dynamite Dictator
J.P. O’Malley
November 7, 2014
The hubris of that position did so much to create and compound these problems.
Is It Just Me or Is the World Exploding? So Why Isn’t Obama Doing More?
Michael Tomasky
July 28, 2014
Can Clinton help find the elusive middle ground in American foreign policy between the hubris of Bush and the reluctance of Obama?
What Drives Clinton? Not What You Think
Kim Ghattas
June 9, 2014
Downes disparages this as hubris, “man too big for his boots.”
Rackstraw Downes’s Art and Essays Are Two Sides of the Same Genius
Bill Morris
June 4, 2014

Historical Examples of hubris

Her hubris was in part, at all events, the result of ignorance.
Before the War
Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
Each Year arrives, waxes great, commits the sin of Hubris, and then is slain.
Five Stages of Greek Religion
Gilbert Murray
Every year He waxes too strong and commits "Hubris," and such sin has its proper punishment.
Euripedes and His Age
Gilbert Murray

British Dictionary definitions for hubris

hubris

hybris

noun

pride or arrogance

(in Greek tragedy) an excess of ambition, pride, etc, ultimately causing the transgressor's ruin

Derived Formshubristic or hybristic, adjective

Word Origin for hubris

C19: from Greek

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

Word Origin and History for hubris

also hybris, 1884, a back-formation from hubristic or else from Greek hybris "wanton violence, insolence, outrage," originally "presumption toward the gods;" the first element probably PIE *ud- "up, out," but the meaning of the second is debated.