EGO

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ego mean? 

• EGO (noun)
  The noun EGO has 3 senses:

1. an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others

2. your consciousness of your own identity

3. (psychoanalysis) the conscious mind

  Familiarity information: EGO used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EGO (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

ego; egotism; self-importance

Hypernyms ("ego" is a kind of...):

pride; pridefulness (a feeling of self-respect and personal worth)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Your consciousness of your own identity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

ego; self

Hypernyms ("ego" is a kind of...):

consciousness (an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ego"):

anima ((Jungian psychology) the inner self (not the external persona) that is in touch with the unconscious)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(psychoanalysis) the conscious mind

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("ego" is a kind of...):

brain; head; mind; nous; psyche (that which is responsible for one's thoughts, feelings, and conscious brain functions; the seat of the faculty of reason)

Domain category:

analysis; depth psychology; psychoanalysis (a set of techniques for exploring underlying motives and a method of treating various mental disorders; based on the theories of Sigmund Freud)

 Context examples 

The flame of his ego flared up at the thought. She wanted to come back to him, which was the one thing he did not want.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

"Measuring him by the yardstick of their own miserable egos," Martin broke in.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Every nincompoop in the land rushed into free print, floating their wizened little egos into the public eye on the surge of Brissenden's greatness.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

And, too, he was human, and could feel the draw of her, while his ego could not but appreciate the flattery of her kindness.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

For underneath Martin's awe lurked his assertive ego, and he felt the urge to measure himself with these men and women and to find out what they had learned from the books and life which he had not learned.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

In spite of their Unitarian proclivities and their masks of conservative broadmindedness, they were two generations behind interpretative science: their mental processes were mediaeval, while their thinking on the ultimate data of existence and of the universe struck him as the same metaphysical method that was as young as the youngest race, as old as the cave-man, and older—the same that moved the first Pleistocene ape-man to fear the dark; that moved the first hasty Hebrew savage to incarnate Eve from Adam's rib; that moved Descartes to build an idealistic system of the universe out of the projections of his own puny ego; and that moved the famous British ecclesiastic to denounce evolution in satire so scathing as to win immediate applause and leave his name a notorious scrawl on the page of history.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)