Meanings
present singular third person self-promotes · participle present self-promoting · participle past self-promoted · past self-promoted
- transitiveTo promote oneself; to present oneself to others in a favorable light.
If we narrow our focus to "bad" office politics, the kind that subverts an organization or undermines the work of people, the self-promoting plotting that others do, then yes, there are things that can be done.
1998, IEEE-USA, The Balanced Engineer: Essential Ideas for Career Development, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 822 more examples
Back in the centre of the universe – Toronto, the 'vortex' of all known Canadian culture, most of the gigs were self-promoted, presented in the unused basement room of a hotel or the back room of a hip café.
2011, William (Bill) E. Smith, Bill Smith, Rant & Dawdle: The Fictional Memoir of Colston Willmott, Charivari Press, →ISBN, page 285But if influencers can't help but self-promote, even in the cringiest of times, perhaps it's a little better that they now are also actually raising money? Hey, I'm not saying this "chaotic good" scenario is, well, good. But it exists. And it's not the worst thing that's ever happened.
2020 October 1, Tanya Chen, “I Roughly Calculated The Cost Of This Lifestyle Blogger's Beautiful, Outrageous Master Bathroom Decor”, in BuzzFeed News, archived from the original on 30 May 2023
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*swé?
- Proto-Indo-European*selbʰ-
- Proto-Germanic*selbaz
- Old Englishself
- Old Englishself-
- Middle Englishself-
- Englishself-
- Proto-Indo-European*per-der.?
- Proto-Indo-European*pér
- Proto-Indo-European*pró
- Proto-Indo-European*pro-
- Proto-Italic*pro-
- Latinprō-
- Proto-Indo-European*m(y)ewh₁-
- Proto-Indo-European*m(y)owh₁éyeti
- Proto-Italic*moweō
- Latinmoveō
- Latinprōmoveō
- Late Latinprōmotiō
- Old Frenchpromocion
- Englishpromotion
- Englishself-promotionbf.
- Englishself-promote
Back-formation from self-promotion, equivalent to self- + promote.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
self-promote. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-promote
“self-promote.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-promote. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “self-promote,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-promote.
Source: self-promote on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.