• egoist •
Pronunciation: ee-go-ist • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. Someone who is conceited, self-centered, wrapped up in him- or herself; a person with an inflated ego. 2. A person who subscribes to the theory of egoism, the philosophy that self-interest is the basis of all morality.
Notes: Today's Good Word, as you may have noticed yourself, comes in two flavors, with and without a T: egoist and egotist (see Word History for explanation). In the general vocabulary either of these forms may be used indifferently. However, only today's word, egoist refers to an adherent of the philosophy of egoism. We also have the option of an additional suffix, -al, on the adjective of either form: ego(t)istic or ego(t)istical. But the adverbial -ly may be added only to the extended form: ego(t)istically.
In Play: An egoist is someone completely consumed by himself or herself: "Lance Sterling is an unrepentant egoist who thinks that he is God's gift to women." The general reaction to egoism is negative but sometimes it is justified: "When his 5th novel climbed to the top of the best seller list, Randolph earned the right to be an egoist."
Word History: Today's Good Word is based on the Latin (or Greek) word for "I", ego. The spurious T in egotist is the result of the influence of related words with legitimate Ts, such as nepotism and despotism. In the Germanic languages the ancestor of ego became ik, leading to ich in German and simply I in English. In Old Slavic the [g] became [z] resulting in azê, then yazê, which finally became ya in Russian. When Latin broke up into the Romance languages of today, of course, Latin ego went on to become yo in Spanish, io in Italian, and je in French. (We hope that crediting our Greek friend of the Agora, Portokalos, for suggesting today's Good Word, does not inflate his ego.)
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Re: EGOIST
... "Lance Sterling is an unrepentant egoist who thinks that he is God's gift to women." ...
Years ago one of the AOL CDs that came around in the mail had an application based on the Leisure Suit Larry game series. I copied all of the sound files, one of which was this quote:
I don't think egos come much bigger ..."I don't think of myself as God's gift to women. I think of women as God's gift to me!"
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
Well you know the one about God's gift to man...two wonderful organs but a cardiovascular system that can only provide enough oxygen to one or the other, but never both at the same time.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
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