Word.ws English Dictionary

self-contain

self-contain verb: to not require external or additional support; to be complete in itself.

Verb

self-contain (third-person singular simple present self-contains, present participle self-containing, simple past and past participle self-contained)

  1. (transitive, uncommon) To not require external or additional support; to be complete in itself.
  2. (transitive, uncommon) To be wrapped up in oneself; to be reserved.

Forms of self-contain

third-person singular presentself-contains
present participleself-containing
past participleself-contained
pastself-contained

Origin of self-contain

From self- + contain.

Questions about self-contain

What does self-contain mean?
Self-contain means to not require external or additional support; to be complete in itself.
What part of speech is self-contain?
Self-contain is a verb.
What is the past tense of self-contain?
The past tense of self-contain is self-contained.

Words near self-contain in the dictionary

  1. self-consciousness
  2. self-consistency
  3. self-consistent
  4. self-consolation
  5. self-consolations
  6. self-contain
  7. self-contained
  8. self-containing
  9. self-contains
  10. self-contempt
  11. self-contradict

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: self-contain (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “self-contain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/self-contain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.