Word.ws English Dictionary

philauty

philauty noun: selfishness, self-esteem, vanity.

Noun

philauty (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Selfishness, self-esteem, vanity.
    • At's left ſtood ſpruce and gaudy Philauty, / Whoſe thoughts dwelt on a cryſtal book ſhe held / Eternally to her admiring Eye; / In which her fooliſh ſelf ſhe read, and ſmil'd / On her fair Leſſon; though the brittle Glaſs / Admoniſh'd her how vain her Beauty was.1702, Joseph Beaumont, “Canto V. The Pacification. Stanza 101.”, in Charles Beaumont, editor, Psyche, or Love’s Mystery, […], 2nd edition, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] University-Press, for...
    • Every Man thinks his own Geese Swans. This Proverb intimates that an inbred Philauty runs through the whole
      Race of Flesh and Blood and that Self-love is the Mother of Vanity, Pride, and Mistake. It turns a Man's Geese
      into Swans, his Dunghill Poultry into Pheasants and his Lambs into Venison.1721, Nathan Bailey, Divers Proverbs

Synonyms of philauty

7 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Origin of philauty

Based on Ancient Greek φιλαυτία (philautía, “self-love, self-regard”), from φιλέω (philéō, “I love”) and αὐτός (autós, “self”).

Questions about philauty

What does philauty mean?
Philauty means selfishness, self-esteem, vanity.
What part of speech is philauty?
Philauty is a noun.

Words near philauty in the dictionary

  1. philathletic
  2. philatories
  3. philatory
  4. philautia
  5. philautic
  6. philauty
  7. Philbeck
  8. Philbecks
  9. Philbert
  10. Philberts
  11. Philbin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: philauty (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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