self-aggrandizing

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-aggrandizing This debut wasn’t a self-aggrandizing spectacle. David Lyman, Cincinnati Enquirer, 6 Oct. 2025 Not for the praise, not for self-aggrandizing satisfaction of a dish made perfectly. Amiel Stanek, Bon Appetit Magazine, 15 Sep. 2025 For the past few months, Newsom tapped his social media team to impersonate Trump online, typing in all caps, making self-aggrandizing claims (more than normal, that is), and being generally combative. Matt Fleming, Oc Register, 6 Sep. 2025 Newsom’s social media efforts this month have mimicked Trump’s all caps, self-aggrandizing posts, in a way that has vexed some of the president’s allies and drawn attention across media platforms. Ted Johnson, Deadline, 26 Aug. 2025 Today's self-aggrandizing report is little more than an industry wishlist masked as government policy. Lucien Bruggeman, ABC News, 30 July 2025 Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem dipped a toe inside the city limits — a dozen miles away from the protests — to host a self-aggrandizing press conference in Westwood, only to have U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla elbow his way in and be thrown to the ground by overzealous FBI agents. Jim Newton, Mercury News, 12 July 2025 Arnett’s narration is conversational but authoritative, proud but not self-aggrandizing. Sarah Larson, New Yorker, 12 May 2025 While Musk’s often self-aggrandizing moves can be polarizing, Trump’s promotion of him as his proxy balances it out. Barnini Chakraborty, The Washington Examiner, 28 Mar. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for self-aggrandizing
Adjective
  • Three or four decades ago, the newspaperman was appealingly raffish—at once a bum who drank too much and a knight-errant who charged unafraid at social injustice, succored the weak, and crossed lances with the powerful and arrogant.
    David Wingrave, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025
  • Elsewhere, the details lifted from the book suffer in translation – Branagh’s Victor is appropriately arrogant but not adequately tortured; De Niro’s Monster is sensitive and intuitive, but drowns in the film’s hurried, hollow second half.
    Rory Doherty, Vulture, 20 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • All but the most vainglorious architects imagine that their buildings will change in some small way after completion.
    Anthony Paletta, Curbed, 2 Sep. 2025
  • The real real thing tended to be rather different: clumsy, ad hoc, vainglorious—and secret.
    Dan Piepenbring, Harpers Magazine, 16 July 2025
Adjective
  • And it could be accelerated by the continued rise of angry, resentful, self-glorifying nationalism in many countries.
    Michael J. Mazarr, Foreign Affairs, 6 May 2022
Adjective
  • Like Muscle Man, Mixtape follows a self-important, inarticulate mediocrity on the fringe of a minor American metropolis.
    Robert Rubsam, Vulture, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Their music provided a suitably self-important soundtrack as Great Recession-era artisanal hipsterdom faded into the careerist hopefulness of the latter Obama years, when Everlane minimalism supplanted lumberjack plaid.
    Kyle Chayka, New Yorker, 13 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • This is a tense and volatile arena, and these are some proud and egotistical people.
    Jason Quick, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2025
  • But unlike the egotistical professor, Hill has made peace with his creation.
    Leah Dolan, CNN Money, 17 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Our hero can be remarkably obnoxious and self-centered.
    Noel Murray, Vulture, 24 Oct. 2025
  • Jay is a little more self-centered.
    Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 10 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Against all odds, two narcissistic, self-promoting people can talk to each other and really can get curious and vulnerable and connect.
    Mikey O'Connell, HollywoodReporter, 13 Aug. 2025
  • Needless to say, all these vain, privileged, self-promoting jerks are soon going to make CW’s acquaintance, then regret it — even as vengeful Madison zeroes in on that lady’s whereabouts.
    Dennis Harvey, Variety, 7 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • The kooky characters surrounding Judge Stone included the conceited prosecutor Dan Fielding (John Larroquette), the imposing bailiff Bull Shannon (Richard Moll), and the idealistic public defender Christine Sullivan (Markie Post), each of whom had various quirks of their own.
    Dan Heching, EW.com, 28 Aug. 2025
  • This is the worst kind of football team: a conceited but objectively mediocre squad.
    Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 17 Nov. 2024

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Cite this Entry

“Self-aggrandizing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/self-aggrandizing. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

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