selfie

American  

[sel-fee] / ˈsɛl fi /

noun

Informal.

selfies plural

1. a photograph taken with a smartphone or other digital camera by a person who is also in the photograph, especially for posting on a social media website.

   celebrities sharing selfies on Twitter.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• selfies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of selfie

First recorded in 2000–05; self + -ie

Explanation

If you flip your cellphone around to take a photo of yourself, you'll end up with a selfie. When you visit Paris, don't forget to take a selfie at night with the Eiffel Tower in the background! Selfie is a true 21st-century word, coined around 2002 in Australia. This type of slang word formation — known as a hypocorism, or nickname — is incredibly popular in that country, where a mosquito is a mozzie and a present is a prezzie. By 2013, using cellphones to snap casual self-portraits was so common that the Oxford English Dictionary named selfie its word of the year.

Example Sentences

The hallmark of today’s young generation is the selfie.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 9, 2026

At the end of the video, Barrymore let her hair down and snapped a selfie against one of the walls in the RV, on which an oven mitt could be seen hanging from a hook.

From MarketWatch • Jul. 8, 2026

Influencer brain drives someone on Instagram to think It’s hard to get an aesthetic selfie in a subway station because of all the passengers, and I should say so.

From Salon • Jul. 7, 2026

Ostrovsky, head of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council in Sydney, said his selfie started "spreading like wildfire" after being posted online by his friend.

From Barron's • Jun. 29, 2026

I click on the photo gallery and pull up the last picture taken, the selfie Gavin snapped with me across the street.

From "The Sky at Our Feet" by Nadia Hashimi