Self-sustenance
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The independent sustenance of oneself, such as not requiring much oxygen to breathe or food to eat and liquids to drink like average species. rare, uncountable
"We are all for utility; and it would be ‘well that it should be so, if, like the boar of the forest, which delves up the flower to get at the root, we had no instincts beyond those of self-sustenance. But, as we have the immortal power of imagination, we are bound to provide nutriment for that celestial part of us, not less than for that which we hold in common with the brutes."
Example
More examples"We are all for utility; and it would be ‘well that it should be so, if, like the boar of the forest, which delves up the flower to get at the root, we had no instincts beyond those of self-sustenance. But, as we have the immortal power of imagination, we are bound to provide nutriment for that celestial part of us, not less than for that which we hold in common with the brutes."
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.