Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Selfless |
SelflessAdjective1. Showing unselfish concern for the welfare of others. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "selfless" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1885. (references) |
Synonym: SelflessSynonym: altruistic (adj). (additional references) |
| Antonym: egoistic (adj). (additional references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | It can also be said that love can change the future, if it is deep enough, true enough, and selfless enough. (The Outer Limits; writing credit: Harlan Ellison) I will find a selfless good deed! (Friends; writing credit: Jörn O. Jensen; Birger Larsen) She is selfless and caring, she is good company, she has a wonderful sense of humor. (Stargate SG-1; writing credit: Robert C. Cooper; Brad Wright) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dennis Miller | It's sad to say, but history has not given us many examples of genuinely selfless people. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Selfless" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.03% of the time. "Selfless" is used about 103 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.03% | 102 | 32,309 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.97% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 103 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
selfless service | 9 |
selfless | 3 |
love lyrics only selfless | 2 |
love selfless | 2 |
love only selfless | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "selfless"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Afrikaan | aanhanklik (affectionate, devoted). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | vetëmohues, altruist (altruist, altruistic). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | غيري (altruistic), غير أناني (altruistic, unselfish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | самоотвержен, безкористен, пожертвувателен (charitable). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Catalan | afectuós (affectionate, devoted). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | nesobecký (unselfish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | gehecht (affectionate, devoted). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | sindonema (devoted), sindona (devoted). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | affectueux. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frisian | oanhinklik (affectionate, devoted), oanhanklik (affectionate, devoted). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | selbstlos (disinterested, selflessly, unselfish, unselfishly). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | ανιδιοτελήσ (unselfish), αφιλοκερδήσ (disinterested, unselfish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | בלתי א וכי. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | önzetlen (altruistic, disinterested, magnanimous, unselfish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | disinteressato (detached, disinterested), altruistico (altruistic), altruista (altruist, self-sacrificing, unselfish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 没我的 (self-effacing). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | ぼつがてき (self-effacing). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | neuhondagh. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | elflesssay generoso (big heart, boon, bounteous, chivalrous, enlarged, flush, generous, large, large handed, large minded, large-hearted, lavish, magnate, open-hearted, soft-hearted, ungrudging, unselfish, unsparing, warm-hearted, whole-souled), desinteresseiro, dedicado (addicted, dedicated, devoted, loving, loyal, staunch, zealous), altruísta (altruist, altruistic, unselfish). (various references) самоотверженный. (various references) nesebičan (altruistic, pure, unselfish). (various references) afectuoso (affectionate, cordial, devoted, fond, tender, warm). (various references) osjälvisk (disinterested, self-forgetful, unselfish). (various references) kendini düşünmeyen (self-forgetful, unselfish), özverili (devoted, self denying, self-sacrificing, unselfish). (various references) самовідданий. (various references) vì người, vị tha, quên mình (self-sacrificing), không ích kỷ (unselfish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "selfless": selflessly, selflessness, selflessnesses. (additional references) | |
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"Selfless" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: selfes, shelfless, silkless. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "selfless" (pronounced se"lflus) |
| 4 | -f l u s | leafless, lifeless. |
| 3 | -l u s | accomplice, acropolis, ageless, aimless, airless, Amaryllis, anomalous, atlas, bacillus, backless, balas, baseless, blameless, bloodless, bolus, boneless, bottomless, boundless, brainless, breathless, calculus, callous, callus, careless, Carolus, cashless, ceaseless, childless, classless, cloudless, clueless, Colas, colorless, cordless, countless, cutlass, defenseless, digitalis, directionless, doubtless, driverless, ductless, earless, effortless, endless, expressionless, eyeless, fabulous, faceless, fatherless, fearless, featherless, featureless, feckless, fellas, fenceless, flawless, flightless, frictionless, frivolous, fruitless, Gallus, garrulous, gladiolus, godless, graceless, groundless, guileless, guiltless, hairless, hapless, harmless, headless, heartless, helpless, homeless, hopeless, hornless, humorless, incredulous, irregardless, issueless, jealous, jobless, keyless, lactobacillus, landless, lawless, leaderless, legless, libelous, limbless, limitless, listless, loveless, luckless, malice, marvelous, meaningless, meatless, megalopolis, merciless, meticulous, metropolis, mindless, miraculous, motherless, motionless, nameless, nautilus, nebulous, necklace, necropolis, needless, odorless, overzealous, Oxalis, painless, palace, paperless, peerless, pendulous, penniless, perilous, pilotless, pitiless, pointless, polis, populace, populous, powerless, priceless, prothallus, purposeless, querulous, reckless, regardless, relentless, remorseless, restless, ridiculous, riskless, rootless, rudderless, ruthless, scandalous, scoreless, scrupulous, scurrilous, seamless, senseless, sexless, shameless, shapeless, shiftless, skinless, sleepless, sleeveless, smokeless, solace, soulless, speechless, spineless, spotless, stainless, stateless, stimulus, stylus, surplus, syphilis, tantalus, tasteless, thankless, thoughtless, ticketless, tieless, timeless, tireless, toothless, topless, treeless, trellis, tremulous, unscrupulous, useless, valueless, victimless, voiceless, warrantless, weightless, windlass, windowless, wireless, witless, wordless, worthless, zealous, zipless. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-f-l-l-s-s-s" | |
-2 letters: fesses, selles. | |
-3 letters: esses, feels, fells, fesse, flees, seels, selfs, selle, sells. | |
-4 letters: eels, ells, else, eses, feel, fees, fell, fess, flee, lees, less, seel, sees, self, sell, sels. | |
-5 letters: eel, efs, elf, ell, els, ess, fee, lee, see, sel. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-e-f-l-l-s-s-s" | |
+2 letters: fellnesses, fullnesses, selflessly. | |
+3 letters: shellfishes, swellfishes. | |
+4 letters: fallownesses, flawlessness, lawfulnesses, lifelessness, selflessness. | |
+5 letters: balefulnesses, defenselessly, dolefulnesses, faultlessness, gesellschafts, gleefulnesses, helpfulnesses, lustfulnesses, playfulnesses, soulfulnesses, suspensefully, willfulnesses. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 65 6C 66 6C 65 73 73 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)... . .-.. ..-. .-.. . ... ... |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01100101 01101100 01100110 01101100 01100101 01110011 01110011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S e l f l e s s |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 0065 006C 0066 006C 0065 0073 0073 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)5371787278718585 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Quotations: Spoken 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Derivations 10. Rhymes 11. Anagrams 12. Orthography | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
