self-aggrandizing

adjective

self-ag·​gran·​diz·​ing ˌself-ə-ˈgran-ˌdī-ziŋ 

 also  -ˈa-grən-

: acting or intended to enhance one's power, wealth, position, or reputation

… staggeringly self-aggrandizing greed and theft …

—William J. Astore

… a self-aggrandizing cad bent on gathering for himself whatever spoils he can amass from the public coffers.

—Paul Beckett

especially : boastful often in disregard of the truth

self-aggrandizing remarks

… the skill of talking about yourself in a natural way without coming off as a self-aggrandizing braggart.

—Jim Murray

… whose dishonest, self-aggrandizing memoirs adroitly snookered the public …

—Frank Rich

We hear of the self-aggrandizing fantasies which he told his sisters, as tales to amuse them.

—Robert Penn Warren

… was publicly suspended with no pay for six months after it emerged that he repeatedly told a self-aggrandizing, false story about being aboard a military helicopter hit by an RPG over Iraq.

—Kieran Corcoran and Christopher Brennan

self-aggrandizement

ˌself-ə-ˈgran-dəz-mənt

-ˌdīz- 

 also  -ˌa-grən-ˈdīz-

noun

plural self-aggrandizements

… the construction of monumental buildings for self-aggrandizement.

—Beatrice Forbes Manz

A native reticence, almost an aversion to anything that might be construed as boasting or self-aggrandizement, is paired with innate optimism, loyalty and a quiet determination.

—Steven Winn

Examples of self-aggrandizing in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The image of Nyad that has emerged in recent weeks, as reported in an in-depth piece by my Times colleague Josh Rottenberg, is of a remarkable athlete with a history of exaggerating her many achievements — a self-aggrandizing scourge of the marathon swimming community. —Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 3 Sep. 2023

It’s been the same as the rest, self-interested, self-aggrandizing, only with better winter weather. —Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 4 Aug. 2023

With some actors, the idea that a basically normal businessman might be this innately persuasive could read as self-aggrandizing, even delusional. —Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 27 June 2023

The filmmaker mocks the machismo of uniformed service professions via his explicitly gay scenarios and laughs at the self-aggrandizing upper classes with a strenuous flatulence. —Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 1 June 2023

Season 3 of the once-great show fell into disarray amid a series of mind-boggling character choices, self-aggrandizing flights of fancy and obnoxiously long and meandering episodes. —Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 31 May 2023

And Barry’s trip to Los Angeles is something of a self-aggrandizing spiritual quest. —Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 15 May 2023

In Act 1, where Sondheim and book writer James Lapine imbue fairy-tale figures with urbane neuroses, the two princes meet in the woods for a hyperbolic lament about their eternal, pure-hearted mission: the admirably selfless (read: self-aggrandizing) task of rescuing damsels in distress. —Peter Marks, Washington Post, 16 Mar. 2023

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Word History

First Known Use

1820, in the meaning defined above