self-reference
self-reference noun: an act or process of referring to itself or oneself.
Noun
self-reference (usually uncountable, plural self-references)
- An act or process of referring to itself or oneself.
- Ethologists concerned with the evolution of human behaviour have stopped short of attempting to explain the further reaches of the human mind; consciousness, self-reference, the construction of identity, and intersubjective relating.1985, John H. Crook, The evolution of human consciousness, Oxford University Press
- Synonyms:
- autoreference
Verb
self-reference (third-person singular simple present self-references, present participle self-referencing, simple past and past participle self-referenced)
Synonyms of self-reference
Forms of self-reference
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | self-references |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | self-references |
| present participle | self-referencing |
| past participle | self-referenced |
| past | self-referenced |
Origin of self-reference
From self- + reference.
Words formed from self-reference
Questions about self-reference
- What does self-reference mean?
- Self-reference means an act or process of referring to itself or oneself.
- What part of speech is self-reference?
- Self-reference can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of self-reference?
- The plural of self-reference is self-references.
Words near self-reference in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: self-reference (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-reference.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/self-reference. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.