Word.ws English Dictionary

elbow mentality

elbow mentality noun: an attitude characterized by self-interest and a willingness to prioritize personal benefit or ambition, often above the welfare of an organization or community; a willingness to elbow (verb) past others.

Noun

elbow mentality (plural elbow mentalities)

  1. (idiomatic) An attitude characterized by self-interest and a willingness to prioritize personal benefit or ambition, often above the welfare of an organization or community; a willingness to elbow (verb) past others.
    • In both samples, hierarchic self-interest, a syndrome of self-enhancing value orientations, sometimes called an ‘elbow mentality’ [Hadjar 2004] or a ‘capitalist mentality’ [Boehnke and Dragolov forthcoming], negatively predicted generalised trust, though once again the effect sizes were quite low.2012 December 1, Klaus Boehnke, Susanne Rippl, “General and ‘Neighbourly’ Trust in Border Regions: An Analysis of the Influence of Disintegration Experience and of Self-Enhancement Mentalities in the...
    • Elbow mentality and competition with the aim of absolute profit maximization seem to drive trade and economic relations.2018, Christian Kenntner, editor, WE in Transition [Das WIR im Wandel] (PDF), Bonn: International FoodNetCenter Bonn, archived from the original on 08 Feb 2021, page 21

Forms of elbow mentality

pluralelbow mentalities

Origin of elbow mentality

Calque of German Ellbogenmentalität or Ellenbogenmentalität, from Ellbogen / Ellenbogen (“elbow”) + Mentalität (“mentality”).

Questions about elbow mentality

What does elbow mentality mean?
Elbow mentality means an attitude characterized by self-interest and a willingness to prioritize personal benefit or ambition, often above the welfare of an organization or community; a willingness to elbow (verb) past others.
What part of speech is elbow mentality?
Elbow mentality is a noun.
What is the plural of elbow mentality?
The plural of elbow mentality is elbow mentalities.

Words near elbow mentality in the dictionary

  1. elbow joints
  2. elbow juice
  3. Elbow Lake
  4. elbow macaroni
  5. elbow mentalities
  6. elbow mentality
  7. elbow pit
  8. elbow pits
  9. elbow plant
  10. elbow plants
  11. elbow relation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: elbow mentality (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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