self-contempt

noun

A feeling of contempt toward oneself.

OriginEnglish contempt ← Middle English self- ← Old English self- →
Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounself-contempt (uncountable)
  1. uncountableA feeling of contempt toward oneself.

    [R]egard this Earth / Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou / Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, / And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts, / With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.

    1818–1819 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Prometheus Unbound”, in Prometheus Unbound […], London: C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier […], published 1820, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 19

Origin

  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. Englishcontempt
  9. Englishself-contempt

From self- + contempt.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

self-contempt. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-contempt

MLA

“self-contempt.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-contempt. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “self-contempt,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-contempt.

Source: self-contempt on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.