SELF-DENYING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does self-denying mean? 

• SELF-DENYING (adjective)
  The adjective SELF-DENYING has 2 senses:

1. willing to deprive yourself

2. used especially of behavior

  Familiarity information: SELF-DENYING used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SELF-DENYING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Willing to deprive yourself

Synonyms:

self-denying; self-giving; self-sacrificing

Similar:

unselfish (disregarding your own advantages and welfare over those of others)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Used especially of behavior

Synonyms:

renunciant; renunciative; self-abnegating; self-denying

Similar:

nonindulgent; strict (characterized by strictness, severity, or restraint)

 Context examples 

“If you cannot do without me, ma'am—” said Fanny, in a self-denying tone.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

“You are a self-denying soul,” said my aunt, “and will have your reward.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation: of all the conflicts and all the sacrifices that ennoble us most.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Mr. Weston was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and promoted the match; but it was a black morning's work for her.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I saw my life as a whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had walked with my father’s hand, and through the self-denying toils of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I felt, but I am sure I don't know why, that this was self-denying and devoted in Mrs. Micawber, and I uttered a murmur to that effect.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Without any particular affection for her eldest cousin, her tenderness of heart made her feel that she could not spare him, and the purity of her principles added yet a keener solicitude, when she considered how little useful, how little self-denying his life had (apparently) been.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The belief of being prudent, and self-denying, principally for his advantage, was her chief consolation, under the misery of a parting, a final parting; and every consolation was required, for she had to encounter all the additional pain of opinions, on his side, totally unconvinced and unbending, and of his feeling himself ill used by so forced a relinquishment.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and with such labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good intentions, of self-denying plans.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)