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navel-gazing

[ ney-vuhl-gey-zing ]
/ ˈneɪ vəlˌgeɪ zɪŋ /
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noun Slang.
excessive absorption in self-analysis or focus on a single issue.
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Origin of navel-gazing

First recorded in 1955–60; navel + gaz(e) + -ing1; 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….”

Words nearby navel-gazing

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use navel-gazing in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for navel-gazing

navel-gazing

noun
informal self-absorbed behaviour
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
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