Dictionary

self-sacrifice en · NOUN

Pronunciation

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Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *swé? Proto-Indo-European *selbʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *selbaz Old English self Old English self- Middle English self- English self- Proto-Indo-European *seh₂k- Proto-Indo-European *-rós Proto-Indo-European *sh₂krós Proto-Italic *sakros Archaic Latin sakros Old Latin sacros Old Latin *sakr̥s Old Latin *sakerr Latin sacerder. Latin sacrum Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁k- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁kyéti Proto-Italic *θakjō Proto-Italic *fakjō Latin faciō Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós Proto-Italic *-ijos Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -iusnom. Latin -ium Latin sacrificiumlbor. Old French sacrifisebor. Middle English sacrifice English sacrifice English self-sacrifice From self- + sacrifice.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The giving up of one's own benefit for the good of others.
   • Turians have a strong inclination towards public service and self-sacrifice, so they tend to be poor entrepreneurs. 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Turians: Culture Codex entry:
   • […] he turned his resourceful mind away from the serene life of a don on grass lawns in Cambridge to one of self-sacrifice and pure devotion in the thorny bushes of Africa. 2012, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, chapter 15, in In the House of the Interpreter, New York: Anchor Books, published 2015, pages 43–44:
   • Some of those boys came straight from the cornfields with only a summer’s wages in their pockets, hung on through the four years, shabby and underfed, and completed the course by really heroic self-sacrifice. 1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book 3, Chapter 1, p. 292:
   • Caring for a loved one with a chronic illness inevitably involves self-sacrifice.
   • Whatever he was suffering, it was she who had caused it; he had vacated his house on account of her. She was not worth such self-sacrifice; she should not have accepted it of him. 1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter VIII, in The Woodlanders […], volume III, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 165:
2. (countable, uncountable) The act of making the ultimate sacrifice of giving up one's life for a cause.
   • [Scott’s Last Expedition] had been one of my own favourite books. It seemed curiously dated now, this heroism with only the ice for enemy, self-sacrifice that involved no deaths beyond one’s own. 1951, Graham Greene, The End of the Affair, New York: Pocket Books, Book 5, Chapter 6, p. 215:
   • However, something once happened on the railway there which showed the very best of mankind: heroism, duty, self-sacrifice and calm professionalism under terrible pressure. It is a story which gives us far, far better reasons for remembering this attractive little town, which without these heroes would have been blown to smithereens in a gigantic explosion. (Two railwaymen lost their lives in 1944 when a wagon in an ammunition train caught fire and blew up, an even worse disaster was averted however.) 2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 42:
   • His brave self-sacrifice won him a posthumous medal, but I think he'd have preferred to receive it in person.

Forms

Relateds

self-sacrificer · self-sacrificingly · self-sacrificing

Synonyms

self-denial · self-abnegation

Translations (42)

mk самопре́гор (giving up of one's own benefit) · tr fedakârlık (giving up of one's own benefit) · sh самоодрицање (giving up of one's own benefit) · hi आत्मनिवेदन (giving up of one's own benefit) · ru самопоже́ртвование (giving up of one's own benefit) · mk самопожртву́вање (giving up of one's own benefit) · nn sjølvoppofring (giving up of one's own benefit) · it autosacrificio (giving up of one's own benefit) · eo memofero (giving up of one's own benefit) · sv självuppoffring (giving up of one's own benefit) · hi आत्मत्याग (giving up of one's own benefit) · fi uhrautuminen (giving up of one's own benefit) · hu önfeláldozás (giving up of one's own benefit) · pt autossacrifício (giving up of one's own benefit) · gu આત્મસમર્પણ (giving up of one's own benefit) · nl zelfopoffering (giving up of one's own benefit) · sh samoodricanje (giving up of one's own benefit) · tr özveri (giving up of one's own benefit) · cs sebeobětování (giving up of one's own benefit) · fr sacrifice de soi (giving up of one's own benefit) · ja 自己犠牲 (giving up of one's own benefit) · ga féiníobairt (giving up of one's own benefit) · cmn 自我犧牲 /自我牺牲 (giving up of one's own benefit) · es abnegación (giving up of one's own benefit) · sh samožr̀tvovānje (giving up of one's own benefit) · fr auto-sacrifice (giving up of one's own benefit) · ro sacrificiu de sine (giving up of one's own benefit) · hi आत्मबलिदान (giving up of one's own benefit) · da selvopofrelse (giving up of one's own benefit) · sh саможр̀твова̄ње (giving up of one's own benefit) · sh самопрегор (giving up of one's own benefit) · bg саможертва (giving up of one's own benefit) · et eneseohverdus (giving up of one's own benefit) · sh samopregor (giving up of one's own benefit) · de Selbstaufopferung (giving up of one's own benefit) · pl samopoświęcenie (giving up of one's own benefit) · uk самопоже́ртва (giving up of one's own benefit) · nb selvoppofrelse (giving up of one's own benefit) · es autosacrificio (giving up of one's own benefit) · el αυτοθυσία (giving up of one's own benefit) · az fədakarlıq (giving up of one's own benefit) · it abnegazione (giving up of one's own benefit)