self-aggrandizement

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of self-aggrandizement With or without self-aggrandizement, a kind of precedent was established. Robert Goulder, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for self-aggrandizement
Noun
  • This propensity for mental acrobatics, alongside his immense arrogance, was how Epstein rationalized his crimes to himself.
    Helen Lewis, The Atlantic, 25 Oct. 2025
  • Using him comes across as arrogance.
    Joe Nguyen, Denver Post, 19 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • In the owner’s en suite, Heesen replaced one of the original dual toilets with a vanity area.
    Julia Zaltzman, Robb Report, 27 Oct. 2025
  • At the same time, invisibility has come as a relief, insofar as my vanity always kept company with self-consciousness and self-flagellation.
    Lucinda Rosenfeld, New Yorker, 25 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • By incorporating a character unable to do anything but cry and coo, the show only highlights its disinterest in more nuanced examinations of human behavior, such as greed or egotism.
    Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 27 June 2025
  • After his death the day after Easter at age 88, Francis was hailed for pushing Catholics and others to forsake egotism and materialism in favor of a kinder, more tolerant world focused above all on the marginalized.
    Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 19 June 2025
Noun
  • On Saturday, on the streets of Washington, Donald Trump will throw himself a costly and ostentatious military parade, a gaudy display of waste and vainglory staged solely to inflate the president’s dirigible-sized ego.
    Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 12 June 2025
  • The conceit is saved from vainglory by the gravity Cage brings to the performance.
    Isaac Butler, The New Yorker, 1 Dec. 2023
Noun
  • After a precise drone and cruise missile successfully hit Saudi Arabia’s vital oil infrastructure in September 2019, Russia could hardly conceal its delight and self-satisfaction.
    Paul Iddon, Forbes.com, 16 Sep. 2025
  • Trump himself personifies stupidity’s essential feature — self-satisfaction, an inability to recognize the flaws in your thinking.
    David Brooks, Mercury News, 16 Apr. 2025
Noun
  • Great political filmmakers, by confronting not only the complacencies of popular political filmmaking but the doctrinal comfort zone of the art-house audience, revitalize their own art.
    Richard Brody, New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2025
  • Kings coach Doug Christie warned against complacency as his team prepared to face a shorthanded Los Angeles Lakers squad with LeBron James and Luka Doncic sidelined due to injuries.
    Jason Anderson, Sacbee.com, 26 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • At the same time, the song channeled the slightly uncomfortable fusion of selflessness and self-glorification that pop and rock ‘n’ roll stars inevitably projected during the charity-rock-event ’80s.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 29 Jan. 2024
  • Writing about other peoples has long been in service of self-glorification.
    Manvir Singh, The New Yorker, 25 Dec. 2023
Noun
  • Where Spider masked his incompetence with bravado and abrasiveness, Claude put up a thin layer of smugness that collapsed when faced with even a tiny amount of resistance.
    Brian Grubb, Vulture, 29 Oct. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Self-aggrandizement.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/self-aggrandizement. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.

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