Self"ish*ness, n.
The quality or state of being selfish; exclusive regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those of others.
Selfishness,- a vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbors it, and, as such, condemned by self-love.
Sir J. Mackintosh.
Syn. -- See Self-love.
© Webster 1913.