Etymology

self-absorbed

Today it means: Overly concerned about oneself, to the point of ignoring the feelings of others. Full definition →

English absorbed ← Middle English self- ← Old English self-
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*swé?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*selbʰ-
  3. Proto-Germanic*selbaz
  4. Old Englishself
  5. Old Englishself-
  6. Middle Englishself-
  7. Englishself-
  8. Englishabsorbed
  9. English todayself-absorbed

From self- + absorbed.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.