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

self-deprecatingly adverb

… his own informal cluster of American dissident scholars, which self-deprecatingly calls itself the "consolation club" …

—Franklin Foer

Examples of self-deprecating in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

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

The bridge is the fusion of the two, being funny and tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating, but also trying to say something that matters. —Maya Georgi, Rolling Stone, 16 Jan. 2026

Fortunately, Jimmy is there to ease the tension with some self-deprecating humor about his failure to pass the civil-service tests. —Sophie Brookover, Vulture, 15 Jan. 2026

Weike Wang, Chemistry Weike Wang’s debut novel is quick, wry, and fraught with self-deprecating humor. —Literary Hub, 14 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1834, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for self-deprecating

• accelerating
• accentuating
• accommodating
• accumulating
• adjudicating
• administrating
• affiliating
• agglutinating
• alienating
• alleviating
• amalgamating
• ameliorating