self-deprecating
adjective
self-dep·re·cat·ing
ˌself-ˈde-pri-ˌkā-tiŋ 
: tending or serving to disparage or undervalue oneself
self-deprecating humor
He is far too self-deprecating … to assume the persona of a celebrity.—
Eve MacSweeney
Eve MacSweeney
self-deprecatingly
adverb
… his own informal cluster of American dissident scholars, which self-deprecatingly calls itself the "consolation club" …
—Franklin Foer
Franklin Foer
Examples of self-deprecating in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Here is the regular guy who loves shooting hoops, who is hopeless with a hammer, who loves a self-deprecating story about walking into a glass wall or almost falling off a ladder, and whose wife, Lori, is always, always right.
—Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 27 Jan. 2026
Charli’s version of herself, though, is a fascinating creation — self-deprecating, yes, and laughing at herself, but with the clinical distance of a telescope lasered onto a forming star.
—Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 24 Jan. 2026
Burns recalls with a self-deprecating smile.
—IEEE Spectrum, 20 Jan. 2026
But Skarsgård has already had a moment, winning the Golden Globe and giving perhaps the night’s best speech, self-deprecating — talking about how raising eight children taught him how to be a bad father — and passionate.
—Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 19 Jan. 2026
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Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 27 Jan. 2026
Charli’s version of herself, though, is a fascinating creation — self-deprecating, yes, and laughing at herself, but with the clinical distance of a telescope lasered onto a forming star.
—Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 24 Jan. 2026
Burns recalls with a self-deprecating smile.
—IEEE Spectrum, 20 Jan. 2026
But Skarsgård has already had a moment, winning the Golden Globe and giving perhaps the night’s best speech, self-deprecating — talking about how raising eight children taught him how to be a bad father — and passionate.
—Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 19 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for self-deprecating
Cite this Entry
“Self-deprecating.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-deprecating. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.
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