self-evident
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of self-evident
First recorded in 1665–75
Vocabulary lists containing self-evident
Obvious
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Obvious
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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.
As we observe the 250th anniversary of the document that declared this proposition a self-evident truth, many Americans don’t regard it as true, let alone self-evident.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
Pause for a moment and think about the very fact of our Constitution, and this no-entrenchment principle becomes self-evident.
From Slate ● May 26, 2026
The existential philosophy of Camus and Sartre, self-evident truths for these absurdist writers, is conveyed less through the content than through the style of their plays.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2026
“Michael” might be a self-evident, self-sustaining, self-indulgent piece of PR.
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2026
Even the 2,500-year-old Greek idea of an axiomatic geometry—a few self-evident axioms being assumed, and from them the theorems being derived by logic alone—is not being effectively taught in secondary school.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
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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.