self-reference
Americannoun
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reference made to oneself, to one's own character or experience, or to a group with which one identifies.
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Logic. the property of a statement that is a statement about itself, as “This statement is grammatical.”
Sensitive Note
Social, ethnic, or other groups often use terms of self-reference in a neutral, even affectionate or jocular way, much like nicknames. These self-referential terms function to reinforce solidarity among members of the group. However, when used by outsiders, these very same terms are perceived as offensive by those who belong to the group. Examples of self-referential terms are Canuck, chick, dyke, geek, nigger, queer.
Other Word Forms
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.
Leaving aside the self-reference and winks at the audience, the director instead tells this highly metafictional story in a dozen docu-realistic vignettes, revealing the alienation of urban life and the cruelty of men.
From New York Times ● Sep. 13, 2022
The shade, when it’s thrown, is aimed mostly at the Intellectual Property Industrial Complex, with its voracious appetite for repetition and shameless self-reference.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2021
A truly fascinating man, Angleton was a devoted student of the matchless British literary critic William Empson, who descried, in the densely metaphoric poems of Donne and Shakespeare, patterns of subtle contradiction, self-reference, and ambiguity.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 26, 2019
Poetic self-reference matters more than strict consistency, attitude more than mythology.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2018
Before becoming what many readers have regarded as only the expression of the poetics of self-reference, the experience of concrete poetry attempted to make poetry visual, musical, or even tactile.
From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Mihai Nadin
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.
