self-ˈcentred, ppl. a.
[self- 3 a.]
1. Fixed or stationary, as a centre round which other things move.
| 1676 Dryden State Innoc. ii. i. (1677) 12 There hangs the ball of Earth and Water mixt, Self-Center'd, and unmov'd. 1687 Norris Coll. Misc. 84 He is one unmov'd self-center'd Point of Rest. 1737 Pope Hor. Ep. i. vi. 6 Self-center'd Sun. 1872 Browning Fifine lxxx. 11 Your steadying touch of hand Assists me to remain self-centred, fixed amid All on the move. |
2. Of persons, their activities, etc.: Centred in oneself (or itself); independent of external action or influence.
| a 1764 Lloyd Whim Poet. Wks. 1774 II. 166 Genius self-center'd feels alone That merit he esteems his own. 1828 Sewell Oxford Prize Ess. 43 Self-centred circles of commercial employments, professions, and amusements. 1877 E. Caird Philos. Kant ii. 15 The self-centred life that makes itself independent of everything but the individuality in which it is imprisoned. 1895 Zangwill Master iii. viii, He would be fixed at last, swinging steadily on a pivot of happiness... Now at last he would be self-centred. |
b. In an unfavourable sense, passing into that of: Engrossed in self, selfishly independent.
| 1783 Johnson Let. to Mrs. Thrale 20 Nov., A stubborn sufficiency self-centered. 1873 Morley Rousseau I. 126 He was both too self-centred and too passionate for warm ease and fulness of life in all things, to be truly sympathetic [etc.]. 1884 W. H. White Mark Rutherford's Deliv. vii. (1892) 97 That self-centred satisfaction which makes life tolerable. |
Hence self-ˈcentredness.
| 1891 F. Paget Spirit of Discipline iii. 98 The absurdity of self-centredness and self-advertisement. 1894 Athenæum 21 July 94/2 With nearly as strong a belief as his master's in the self-centredness of man. |