1632 R. Pecke Spirituall Plowman 16 in Two Serm. Mak'st vse of..meditation, fasting, selfe-searching,..and such like badges of this thy Christian occupation?

1681 J. Owen Humble Testimony 139 This Self-Searching is the first Duty we are..called unto.

1763 Act Associate Presbytery, for renewing National Covenant Scotl. 49 We..have been so careless in self searching, and in reflecting upon our own ways.

1798 D. Simpson God speaking from Mount Gerizim 17 Your secret care to please me, your secret pains with your own hearts, your secret self-searchings, and self-denial; I see them all.

1833 Scioto (Ohio) Gaz. 31 July It will require much self-searching and exertion, for you to be enabled to weigh the matter before us with any coolness and justice.

1892 Athenæum 26 Nov. 737/1 After sundry self-searchings and recoilings..she marries Dering.

1950 J. W. Hurst Growth of Amer. Law xiii. 328 The bar..did little self-searching, to find out wherein lawyers were so inadequately serving people that they should turn to other advisers.

2007 Yoga Jrnl. Aug. 128/1 He never soft-pedals the difficulties inherent in the process of self-searching.

1612 J. Davies Muses Sacrifice f. 7^v Soule-searching Lord, and sole selfe-searching God; Let my poore Soule thy vnknowne sweetnesse know.

1643 A. Tuckney Balme of Gilead 17 The second question..was..partly of an expostulating and bemoaning complaint, and so let it be to us this day of our selfe-searching humiliation.

1651 W. Garrett Ανθολογια 18 The soul-sound self-searching Christian, that labours after sincerity.

1834 W. A. Caruthers Kentuckian in N.Y. I. 201 These are little secret selfishnesses of the soul, which lie deep,..far below the soundings of the self-searching consciousness.

1869 Daily News 16 June An adult self-searching soul, brave to assist and resist.

1911 L. Scott Counsel for Def. xiii. 194 What most self-searching person truly knows the exact motives that prompt his actions?

1978 P. Griffiths Conc. Hist. Mod. Music iii. 34 Both have a public rhetoric which was..foreign to Schoenberg in his profoundly self-searching form of Expressionism.

2016 Driftwood (Univ. New Orleans) (Nexis) 23 Aug. 1 This change in production lends itself to the lyricism throughout the entire album with self-searching vulnerability.