self-aggrandizing

adjective

self-ag·​gran·​diz·​ing ˌself-ə-ˈgran-ˌdī-ziŋ 

 also  -ˈa-grən-

: acting or intended to enhance one's power, wealth, position, or reputation

… staggeringly self-aggrandizing greed and theft …

—William J. Astore

… a self-aggrandizing cad bent on gathering for himself whatever spoils he can amass from the public coffers.

—Paul Beckett

especially : boastful often in disregard of the truth

self-aggrandizing remarks

… the skill of talking about yourself in a natural way without coming off as a self-aggrandizing braggart.

—Jim Murray

… whose dishonest, self-aggrandizing memoirs adroitly snookered the public …

—Frank Rich

We hear of the self-aggrandizing fantasies which he told his sisters, as tales to amuse them.

—Robert Penn Warren

… was publicly suspended with no pay for six months after it emerged that he repeatedly told a self-aggrandizing, false story about being aboard a military helicopter hit by an RPG over Iraq.

—Kieran Corcoran and Christopher Brennan

self-aggrandizement

ˌself-ə-ˈgran-dəz-mənt

-ˌdīz- 

 also  -ˌa-grən-ˈdīz-

noun

plural self-aggrandizements

… the construction of monumental buildings for self-aggrandizement.

—Beatrice Forbes Manz

A native reticence, almost an aversion to anything that might be construed as boasting or self-aggrandizement, is paired with innate optimism, loyalty and a quiet determination.

—Steven Winn

Examples of self-aggrandizing in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Corbet recalled shooting the scene where Van Buren leads a group of party guests outside to a hillside overlook that would become the location for his institute and delivers a long speech that is somehow both self-pitying and self-aggrandizing. —Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, 19 Dec. 2024

Classifying what Piece by Piece will be exactly, especially in the often self-aggrandizing realm of the musical biopic, is a challenge. —Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 28 Aug. 2024

The rise of Huawei is painstakingly rendered in a small library of self-aggrandizing literature that the company publishes, including several volumes of quotes from its founder. —Steven Levy, WIRED, 16 Nov. 2020

Statistically, such worker is more likely to be female than male, as men are not only more likely to engage in self-aggrandizing deception, but also to get away with it. —Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Forbes, 21 Oct. 2024

But the decision to overrule the Chevron deference doctrine and to expand the role of courts is an extraordinary and self-aggrandizing claim of power and authority for the judicial branch. —Washington Post, 9 July 2024

Perhaps the only feature of Modi’s reputation as consistent as his anti-Muslim agenda is his self-aggrandizing ambition. —Maya Jasanoff, The New Yorker, 19 June 2024

Showing up a full hour into the shock jock’s self-aggrandizing autobiographical comedy, Giamatti brings a brash southern smarminess to his foil character, who devolves into a stewing, screaming mess as he’s ruthlessly mocked on the air by the man he’s sworn to rein in. —A.a. Dowd, Vulture, 10 Mar. 2024

Of course, some might take issue with a portrait of the country as obsessively self-aggrandizing, often to the detriment of others. —Jon Sebastian Shifrin, Baltimore Sun, 26 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1820, in the meaning defined above