noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Concern with issues only insofar as they affect one as an individual; self-interest. countable, uncountable

   "Jane Austen's Emma (1816) illustrates the social novel's association of androgyny with selfish privatism."

Synonyms

All synonyms

apartheidautismdetachmentego tripegotismgreed

Example

More examples

"Jane Austen's Emma (1816) illustrates the social novel's association of androgyny with selfish privatism."

Etymology

From private + -ism.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.