self-ˈinterest
[self- 5 a.]
1. One's personal profit, benefit, or advantage. (Cf. interest n. 2 b.) Now rare or Obs.
| 1658 T. Wall Charact. Enemies Ch. 35 Self interest..is the second end. a 1662 Duppa Holy Rules Devot. ii. (1675) 162 Hast thou set up nothing in competition with him [sc. God],..no Profit, no Self-love, no Self-Interest of thine own? 1726 Butler Serm. Rolls Chapel xi. 202 Greater Regards to Self-interest. 1801 Farmer's Mag. Aug. 332 An enlightened sense of self-interest. 1831 Scott Ct. Rob. xiii, He holds his own self-interest to be the devoted guide of his whole conduct. 1833 Lytton Godolphin I. ii. 22 Like Lysander, he loved plotting, yet neglected self-interest. |
b. A private or personal end. ? Obs.
| 1658 Sir H. Slingsby Diary (1836) 208 It admitted no alloy or mixture with By-respects or self-interests. 1712 Prideaux Direct. Church-W. (ed. 4) 91 They have a By-end and Self-interest of their own. 1867 Bagehot Engl. Const. viii. 277 The self-interests, the jobbing propensities of the assembly. |
2. Regard to, or pursuit of, one's own advantage or welfare, esp. to the exclusion of regard for others. (Cf. interest n. 5.) For the favourable sense, cf. self-love 2.
| 1649 J. E[llistone] tr. Behmen's Ep. x. §4 He must mortify the Antichrist in his soule..and become the poorest creature in the owne-hood (selfenesse or selfe interest) of his mind. 1657 Baker's Sancta Sophia ii. ii. ii. §5 (1908) 245 So absolute a purity and freedom from self-interest. 1693 Dryden Exam. Poet. Ded., Ess. (ed. Ker) II. 2 The same jugglings in State, the same hypocrisy in religion, the same self-interest and mismanagement. 1780 Cowper Expost. 439 The priestly brotherhood, devout, sincere, From mean self int'rest and ambition clear. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. Wks. V. 271 An enlightened self-interest, which, when well understood, they tell us, will identify with an interest more enlarged and publick. 1865 Lowell Reconstruction Wks. 1890 V. 236 The..weak good-nature inherent in popular government, but against which monarchies and aristocracies are insured by self-interest. 1878 Emerson Sov. Ethics in N. Amer. Rev. CXXVI. 407 In spite of malignity and blind self-interest..necessity is always bringing things right. |