self-interest

English

Etymology

From self- +‎ interest.

Noun

self-interest (countable and uncountable, plural self-interests)

1. One's personal interest or advantage, especially when pursued without regard for others.

   Hypernym: interest

   Coordinate terms: public interest (sometimes antonymous, but often not), enlightened self-interest

   I cannot abandon my husband for the sake of self-interest and personal gain.

   • 2022 July 27, Charles Hugh Smith, There Won't Be Any Winners Because The Status Quo Is Corrupt Everywhere‎:

     Corruption becomes fatal when those in power are no longer able to distinguish the difference between self-interest and the national interest.

   • 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 52:

     Government standards of decency and honesty were quite low, and decision-makers were tainted with self-interest and corruption at the very highest level.

Derived terms

• enlightened self-interest

 

Related terms

• self-interested
• self-serving

Translations

personal interest

Chinese: Mandarin: 利己主義／利己主义 (zh) (lìjǐzhǔyì), 私心 (zh) (sīxīn), 自利 (zh) (zìlì) Danish: egennytte c, egeninteresse c, selvinteresse c Finnish: oma etu German: Eigennutz (de) m, Eigeninteresse (de) n Greek: ιδιοτέλεια (el) f (idiotéleia) Hebrew: אינטרס עצמי m (interes 'atsmi) Norwegian: Bokmål: egeninteresse m, eigeninteresse m Nynorsk: eigeninteresse f Polish: własna korzyść f, własny interes Portuguese: interesseirismo m Punjabi: ਸ੍ਵਾਰਥ (pa) m (svārath) Russian: своекоры́стие (ru) n (svojekorýstije) Spanish: please add this translation if you can Swedish: egennytta (sv) c, egenintresse (sv) n Turkish: öz çıkar (tr) Vietnamese: tư lợi (vi), (please verify) tự lợi