Selfless

How to spell selfless

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce selfless

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does selfless mean?

1. adjectiveConcerned more with the needs and wishes of others than with one's own; unselfish.

Selfless in a sentence

• Her selfless care for the elderly residents earned the whole team an award.

• The volunteers gave up their weekends in a truly selfless effort to rebuild the flooded homes.

Where does selfless come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound built from two very old Germanic pieces. The first element, 'self', descends from the Old English 'self' or 'seolf', meaning one's own person or identity, a word with relatives across the Germanic languages such as Dutch 'zelf' and German 'selbst'. The second element is the suffix '-less', from Old English '-leas', which literally meant 'free from' or 'without' and is connected to the verb 'lose' and the adjective 'loose'. Joined together, 'selfless' carries the transparent sense of being 'without self', that is, putting one's own interests aside for others. The modern adjective is comparatively recent, emerging in the early 1800s, and the spelling trap lies entirely in the join: the final 'f' of 'self' meets the 'l' of '-less', so the word keeps a single 'f' and a single 'l' rather than doubling either.

How the word is built

• self (one's own person)
• -less (without, lacking)