See self-serving on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for self-serving meaning in All languages combined (3.9kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "self",
"3": "serving"
},
"expansion": "self- + serving",
"name": "prefix"
}
],
"etymology_text": "self- + serving",
"forms": [
{
"form": "more self-serving",
"tags": [
"comparative"
]
},
{
"form": "most self-serving",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "self-serving (comparative more self-serving, superlative most self-serving)",
"name": "en-adj"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms prefixed with self-",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2002, Sam Williams, Free as in Freedom",
"text": "\"Most of the time when people consider the question of what rules society should have for using software, the people considering it are from software companies, and they consider the question from a self-serving perspective,\" says Stallman, opening his speech.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2016 March 3, David Thomson, “Biggest lesson of the 2016 Oscars? The Academy should be scrapped”, in The Guardian",
"text": "Don’t assume that the connotations of authority, history, scholarship, hallowed tradition and judiciousness in the word “Academy” actually fit this self-serving club.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2020 September 23, Nigel Harris, “Comment: We MUST seize the moment”, in Rail, page 3",
"text": "For entirely self-serving reasons, ministers and civil servants never dispelled the public belief that uncaring 'fat cat' privateers or foreign state railways were in control, ramping up fares and creaming off profits which either enriched shareholders or subsidised European rail fares. DfT left train operators to 'take the heat' - which they dutifully did, fearful of speaking up and 'biting the hand that feeds'.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 November 12, Sam Jones, “Fresh protests held across Spain over amnesty deal for Catalan separatists”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "While the PSOE’s leader and caretaker prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, argues that the act of clemency would help promote coexistence after the tumultuous political and territorial crisis of 2017, his opponents have decried the move as a cynical and self-serving means of remaining in power.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Showing interest only in oneself (pursuing self-interest to the exclusion of other goals)."
],
"id": "en-self-serving-en-adj-IS3vLN5O",
"links": [
[
"interest",
"interest"
],
[
"oneself",
"oneself"
],
[
"self-interest",
"self-interest#English"
]
],
"related": [
{
"word": "selfish"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "omaa etuaan ajava"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "itsekäs"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "intéressé"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "selbstsüchtig"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "eigennützig"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "egoistisch"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "אינטרסנט"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "תועלתן"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
"word": "autoreferenziale"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "wyrachowany"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "interesseiro"
}
]
}
],
"word": "self-serving"
}
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "self",
"3": "serving"
},
"expansion": "self- + serving",
"name": "prefix"
}
],
"etymology_text": "self- + serving",
"forms": [
{
"form": "more self-serving",
"tags": [
"comparative"
]
},
{
"form": "most self-serving",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "self-serving (comparative more self-serving, superlative most self-serving)",
"name": "en-adj"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"related": [
{
"word": "selfish"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English adjectives",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms prefixed with self-",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2002, Sam Williams, Free as in Freedom",
"text": "\"Most of the time when people consider the question of what rules society should have for using software, the people considering it are from software companies, and they consider the question from a self-serving perspective,\" says Stallman, opening his speech.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2016 March 3, David Thomson, “Biggest lesson of the 2016 Oscars? The Academy should be scrapped”, in The Guardian",
"text": "Don’t assume that the connotations of authority, history, scholarship, hallowed tradition and judiciousness in the word “Academy” actually fit this self-serving club.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2020 September 23, Nigel Harris, “Comment: We MUST seize the moment”, in Rail, page 3",
"text": "For entirely self-serving reasons, ministers and civil servants never dispelled the public belief that uncaring 'fat cat' privateers or foreign state railways were in control, ramping up fares and creaming off profits which either enriched shareholders or subsidised European rail fares. DfT left train operators to 'take the heat' - which they dutifully did, fearful of speaking up and 'biting the hand that feeds'.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 November 12, Sam Jones, “Fresh protests held across Spain over amnesty deal for Catalan separatists”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "While the PSOE’s leader and caretaker prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, argues that the act of clemency would help promote coexistence after the tumultuous political and territorial crisis of 2017, his opponents have decried the move as a cynical and self-serving means of remaining in power.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Showing interest only in oneself (pursuing self-interest to the exclusion of other goals)."
],
"links": [
[
"interest",
"interest"
],
[
"oneself",
"oneself"
],
[
"self-interest",
"self-interest#English"
]
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "omaa etuaan ajava"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "itsekäs"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "intéressé"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "selbstsüchtig"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "eigennützig"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "egoistisch"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "אינטרסנט"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "תועלתן"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
"word": "autoreferenziale"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"word": "wyrachowany"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "showing interest only in oneself",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "interesseiro"
}
],
"word": "self-serving"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (a644e18 and edd475d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.