How to Use self-absorbed in a Sentence

self-absorbed

adjective
  • On the dark side, be wary of coming across as selfish and self-absorbed when your needs aren't met.
    Valerie Mesa, Peoplemag, 11 June 2024
  • But the message is dark, self-absorbed and lacks empathy.
    Pamela N. Danziger, Forbes, 16 Aug. 2024
  • To that end, yes, honeymoon phases are gushy (and self-absorbed).
    Carolyn Hax, Washington Post, 19 June 2024
  • There's no market for a self-absorbed, past his prime, locker room cancer?
    Dianna Russini, The Athletic, 26 Feb. 2025
  • Smart played Winslet’s mother, Helen, who is both all-seeing and self-absorbed.
    J Wortham, New York Times, 12 May 2024
  • Teens and young adults have been self-absorbed with appearance since at least the Boomer generation began coming of age in the rock-and-roll ’50s.
    Greg Petro, Forbes, 27 Dec. 2024
  • My sibling is loving, kind and generous — as well as self-absorbed.
    Haben Kelati, Washington Post, 10 May 2023
  • Those today with the best levels of executive presence are not self-absorbed.
    Adrian Gostick, Forbes, 18 Apr. 2023
  • However, these terms are often used with a note of derision, applied to someone who is self-absorbed.
    Frances Vinall, Washington Post, 2 June 2023
  • Journalists can be a hyper-competitive bunch who grow self-absorbed under the stress of tight deadlines and long hours.
    Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press, 17 Dec. 2024
  • The hotel guests are sometimes too self-absorbed to notice, but this season amps up the terrors lurking around every corner in the week leading to the mysterious death.
    Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 14 Feb. 2025
  • At this moment the endless analysis and scolding being put forward about what college students were too self-absorbed to grasp about the 2024 election is not helpful.
    Nicolaus Mills, New York Daily News, 20 Jan. 2025
  • This new gaggle of mostly privileged Americans remain as flawed and self-absorbed as ever, too.
    Randy Myers, The Mercury News, 11 Feb. 2025
  • His decision marks the end of a stunning transformation for Loki, from selfish and self-absorbed to someone willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the universe.
    Jp Mangalindan, Peoplemag, 16 Apr. 2024
  • Spiteful, judgmental, and self-absorbed, Livia Soprano (Nancy Marchand) makes life hell for her son to the point of requiring years of psychotherapy.
    and Kevin Jacobsen, EW.com, 25 June 2024
  • If someone calls you self-absorbed, consider whether that person has a point or is projecting their own insecurities.
    David Oliver, USA TODAY, 8 Mar. 2023
  • Harris notes the assumptions of all childfree people being self-absorbed, hating children, and not contributing to society ignore the truth.
    Essence, 1 Aug. 2024
  • But Shirley MacLaine takes things to a whole other level when Aurora — who audiences could be forgiven for initially dismissing as a vapid and self-absorbed mom — takes our heartstrings and refuses to let go.
    Ew Staff, EW.com, 2 Mar. 2025
  • Zoey Johnson Zoey, the fashion-forward and occasionally self-absorbed eldest Johnson child.
    Okla Jones, Essence, 24 Sep. 2024
  • People throw around the term loosely to describe those who are self-absorbed, entitled and manipulative – from overbearing parents to destructive exes.
    Nicole Fallert, USA TODAY, 24 Mar. 2023
  • Hot stone massages, private yoga, every possible amenity, and also rude, self-absorbed, and entitled rich people in every lounge chair, chasing status and self-improvement, conscious of every flaw but their own.
    Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 11 Feb. 2025
  • Double-dealing, self-absorbed and relentlessly ambitious, the most prominent of them were usually appalling.
    Catherine Ostler, WSJ, 24 Mar. 2023
  • Fiona Shaw is so perfectly contemptible throughout those scenes on the sailboat, rendering Angelica so completely self-absorbed and so cruel, that her likely death feels like an immediate relief.
    Caroline Framke, Vulture, 4 Dec. 2024
  • Howie’s mental meanderings are maniacally self-absorbed in a way Castro’s narrator worries is true of his own roiling, recursive thoughts.
    Nathan Goldman, The New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2023
  • Unbeknownst to juror Gladden, his oddball cohorts and other courtroom figures for the (fake) trial are all paid performers — including James Marsden, who plays a self-absorbed, caricatured version of himself.
    James Mercadante, EW.com, 30 May 2024
  • Ambitious and egregiously self-absorbed — Mona and Milton have those traits in common — Mona always tolerated his aggressive handsiness, his middle-of-the-night phone calls, his chronic inappropriateness.
    Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2025
  • For the moment at least, no one can accuse me of being self-absorbed and neglectful, either.
    Lucinda Rosenfeld, New Yorker, 25 Oct. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'self-absorbed.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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