Meaning & use
self-serving
Motivated mainly by a desire to benefit oneself, often at the expense of honesty or fairness to others.
See it in a sentence
His self-serving excuse fooled no one on the team, who all knew the real reason.
The politician's self-serving proposal would have raised his own salary while cutting everyone else's.
A note on using this word
Self-serving carries a stronger note of disapproval than 'selfish' alone, since it implies the person is disguising self-interest as something more noble.
Words with a similar meaning
selfishopportunistic
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “self-serving”, then compare your use with the examples above.
Your draft stays on this page and is not sent anywhere.