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.

Then again, all the bickering, dawdling, and reliably self-preserving ignorance toward the catastrophe nipping at their heels is the point.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 18, 2024

How then do we balance our social need for a certain degree of mutually presumed integrity with a self-preserving requirement for some street smart skepticism of Greeks bearing gifts?

From Salon • Jul. 11, 2023

Whereas the older Daisy of the book is frank, expansive and self-flagellating — clear about her ugly intentions at specific moments, honest about how out-of-control she was — Keough plays her as tight-lipped and self-preserving.

From Washington Post • Mar. 3, 2023

But she clearly delighted in keeping certain things to herself — blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, irony and sincerity, with a sinister, self-preserving wink.

From New York Times • Aug. 2, 2021

The thing to be was careful and self-preserving.

From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles