# ego

Pronunciation: say "EE-goh" US /ˈiɡoʊ/, UK /ˈiːɡəʊ/

## Noun

1. A person's sense of their own worth and importance; self-esteem, or an inflated sense of self-importance.
   - Simple: How important and good a person thinks they are, sometimes too much.
   - _His ego couldn't handle being corrected in front of the whole team._
   - _Her ego demanded that her name appear first on every report, even ones she barely touched._
2. In Freudian theory, the part of the mind that deals with the outside world and balances instinctive desires against conscience.
   - Simple: In Freud's ideas, the part of your mind that deals with the real world and balances your wants and your conscience.
   - _The ego works to reconcile inner desires with the limits of the outside world._
   - _Freud described how the ego manages pressure from both instinct and conscience._
3. In spiritual and philosophical teaching, the sense of being a separate self, an 'I' attached to its own thoughts and desires, that practice aims to quiet or rise above.
   - Simple: The 'I' that feels separate, tied to your thoughts and wants, which spiritual teaching asks you to calm or move past.
   - _Many meditation traditions hold that suffering eases only when the ego, with its endless wanting, is seen through._
   - _After years of silent retreats, he described moments in which his ego seemed to dissolve into everything around him._

## Other meanings

- (noun) The individual from whose point of view a family tree is drawn, and the reference point relative to whom all kinship terms are defined.

## Origin

English ego comes from Latin ego ("I"). Freud used German Ich, formed from the pronoun ich ("I"), as a noun, and his translator chose ego for it. English ego, I, and Ich are doublets.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/ego (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).