| 释义 |
self-ˈinterest
[self- 5 a.]
1. One's personal profit, benefit, or advantage. (Cf. interest n. 2 b.) Now rare or Obs.
1658T. Wall Charact. Enemies Ch. 35 Self interest..is the second end. a1662Duppa 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? 1726Butler Serm. Rolls Chapel xi. 202 Greater Regards to Self-interest. 1801Farmer's Mag. Aug. 332 An enlightened sense of self-interest. 1831Scott Ct. Rob. xiii, He holds his own self-interest to be the devoted guide of his whole conduct. 1833Lytton Godolphin I. ii. 22 Like Lysander, he loved plotting, yet neglected self-interest.
b. A private or personal end. ? Obs.
1658Sir H. Slingsby Diary (1836) 208 It admitted no alloy or mixture with By-respects or self-interests. 1712Prideaux Direct. Church-W. (ed. 4) 91 They have a By-end and Self-interest of their own. 1867Bagehot 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.
1649J. 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. 1657Baker's Sancta Sophia ii. ii. ii. §5 (1908) 245 So absolute a purity and freedom from self-interest. 1693Dryden Exam. Poet. Ded., Ess. (ed. Ker) II. 2 The same jugglings in State, the same hypocrisy in religion, the same self-interest and mismanagement. 1780Cowper Expost. 439 The priestly brotherhood, devout, sincere, From mean self int'rest and ambition clear. 1790Burke 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. 1865Lowell Reconstruction Wks. 1890 V. 236 The..weak good-nature inherent in popular government, but against which monarchies and aristocracies are insured by self-interest. 1878Emerson Sov. Ethics in N. Amer. Rev. CXXVI. 407 In spite of malignity and blind self-interest..necessity is always bringing things right. |