Self-lie

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A lie told to oneself. rare

    "And there comes even to the thinker an hour when he believes at last, that never will he be a social star nor great in anything but his thoughts, and he becomes resigned, which means convinced of the truth of the self-lie that all the lonely days he has been telling."

Example

More examples

"And there comes even to the thinker an hour when he believes at last, that never will he be a social star nor great in anything but his thoughts, and he becomes resigned, which means convinced of the truth of the self-lie that all the lonely days he has been telling."

Etymology

From self- + lie.

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