selfie

American  

[sel-fee] / ˈsɛl fi /

noun

Informal.

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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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

Turning to technology to defeat virtual scams, Cherry Dating uses software matching to compare a selfie alongside a driving licence or passport to verify that each of its members are authentic.

From BBC • May 21, 2026

When compared side by side, the phones are virtually identical in display, platform software, and storage capacity, with the main difference being selfie camera quality.

From Salon • May 21, 2026

Maybe you’ve even snapped a selfie and posted it.

From Slate • May 15, 2026

April 25, he snapped a mirror selfie in his hotel room, according to a pretrial detention memo filed by prosecutors Wednesday.

From Los Angeles Times • May 3, 2026

“I should get a selfie, right? For Jessie?”

From "What If It's Us" by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera