self-satisfaction
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of self-satisfaction
First recorded in 1785–95
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.
You don’t feel the need to advertise your wealth and, despite your efforts, fancy stuff doesn’t make you feel like you’re looking in a mirror at an image of your own self-satisfaction.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 17, 2026
One pupil at Ysgol Stanwell in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, said there was a "sense of real self-satisfaction knowing that you've helped make a difference".
From BBC • Sep. 11, 2025
I partly agree with this story; but it’s also a monument to elite self-satisfaction.
From Seattle Times • Aug. 4, 2023
We might also, in the moment and especially when we look back on it, squirm at Lydia’s self-satisfaction.
From New York Times • Jan. 2, 2023
Hungry Joe was irate and inconsolable until—of all people!—the chaplain was led in wearing a maroon corduroy bathrobe, shining like a skinny lighthouse with a radiant grin of self-satisfaction too tremendous to be concealed.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
