# selfish

Pronunciation: say "SEL-fish" /ˈsɛlf.ɪʃ/

## Adjective

1. Caring chiefly or only about one's own well-being, profit, or pleasure, with little regard for other people.
   - Simple: Caring only about yourself and not about what other people need or want.
   - _Her coworkers found her too selfish to share credit for the team's success._
   - _Refusing to help during the emergency struck everyone as a deeply selfish decision._
2. Treating one's own interest as the measure by which decisions are made.
   - Simple: Making choices based on what is best for yourself.
   - _Economists sometimes assume people act in purely selfish ways when weighing costs and benefits._
   - _A selfish calculation led the firm to abandon the project once profits dipped._
3. Of a gene or similar unit, existing to copy and preserve itself in competition with its rivals, not for the individual or population containing it.
   - Simple: Describing a gene or similar thing that exists to copy itself, not to help the body or group it is part of.
   - _A selfish chromosome can rig egg formation so that it ends up in most of the offspring, whatever the cost to the mother._
   - _Transposable elements behave in a selfish manner, replicating within the genome regardless of any benefit to the organism._
4. Of a video game character: effective through its own actions and abilities rather than depending on support from other characters.
   - Simple: Describing a game character that works well on its own, without needing help from teammates.
   - _Speedrunners favor selfish champions that can carry a match without coordinated team support._
   - _The new duelist plays as a selfish pick, thriving on solo plays rather than teamwork._

## Origin

Formed from "self" plus the suffix "-ish", comparable to Danish "selvisk" and Swedish "självisk", both meaning "selfish".

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