self-abnegation

plural self-abnegations

1. countableuncountableThe denial or invalidation of one's own needs, interests, etc. for the sake of another's; the setting aside of self-interest.

   [King Charles] lacks, too, that aura of self-abnegation, of having surrendered himself to duty.

   2023 September 18, Zoe Williams, “The booing of the national anthem shows the vulnerability of King Charles’s reign”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   5 more examples

   [Self commendation] should bee accompanied with Self-abnegation, or a renouncing of all Self-conceit, Self-sufficiency, Self seeking, or Self worthiness; to prick the bladder of pride in us.

   1656, Edward Reyner, Rules for the Government of the Tongue, London: Thomas Newberry, page 324

   You understand, of course, that it is only by serving and self-abnegation that we advance in the higher world."

   1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “In which Challenger Meets a Strange Colleague”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019

   She must no longer allow herself to hope for anything for herself. The rest of her life must be spent in self-abnegation: she must seek for no sympathy, must ask for no grace in love, no grace and harmony in living. Henceforward, as far as her own desires went, she was dead.

   1934, D. H. Lawrence, “The Old Adam”, in Keith Sagar, editor, The Mortal Coil and Other Stories, Penguin, published 1971, pages 84–85

   The problem was that the Ruler never let anyone know what was expected of him to retain his place of honor. Even humility and self-abnegation, however abject, were not enough to prevent one’s downfall.

   2006, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, chapter 8, in Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, page 231

   Certain business titans have made Mar-A-Lago a scene of such flagrant self-abnegation, ring-kissing, and genuflection that it would embarrass a medieval Pope.

   2025 January 12, David Remnick, “The Inauguration of Trump's Oligarchy”, in The New Yorker

   Synonyms: self-denial, self-sacrifice

2. countableAn act of self-denial.

   […] self-abnegations often repeated imply on the part of the actor a tacit ascription of relative selfishness to others who profit by the self-abnegations.

   1879, Herbert Spencer, chapter 14, in The Data of Ethics, New York: Hurst, page 292

   2 more examples

   There was something monstrous about his self-abnegations. Perhaps he denied himself the things for which he did not care. He wanted to seem nobler than any one else.

   1922, Coningsby Dawson, chapter 4, in The Vanishing Point, New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, page 149

   In one of his first self-abnegations he [Andy Warhol] induced her [his mother] to sign his works, and write his captions, in her own clumsy but clear handwriting.

   1989, John Updike, “Fast Art”, in Alan R. Pratt, editor, The Critical Response to Andy Warhol, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, published 1997, page 196