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ego
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ego Freud's definition

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  • In psychoanalysis, people are aware of only some of the actions of the ego.
    ego = the personality structure that mediates between the primitive, instinctual desires of the id and the moral conscience of the superego
  • I said I wanted an egg shampoo instead of an ego shampoo.   (source)
    ego = psychoanalysis personality structure; or the conscious mind
  • Then when you want free association, you could stretch your patient out the way the barber does to lather up his customer, and when the fifty minutes are up, you could tilt the chair forward again and hand him a mirror so he can see what he looks like on the outside after you've shaved his ego.   (source)
  • Egg…. ego …. close, aren't they?   (source)
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ego as in:  bruised her ego

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  • Try not to bruise her ego while offering advice.
    ego = sense of self-esteem
  • I'm trying to think about this without letting my ego get in the way.
  • So what I'd really like is to try and conceal him somewhere safe, then go hunt, and come back and collect him. But I have a feeling his ego isn't going to go for that suggestion.   (source)
    ego = sense of self-esteem (sense of importance or ability)
  • I won't bruise his precious ego.   (source)
  • They secured the Bird's approval by stroking his ego, naming him "master of ceremonies" and giving him a throne at the front of the "theater"—the bathhouse—outfitted with planks perched on washtubs to serve as a stage.   (source)
    ego = sense of self-esteem (sense of importance)
  • The male ego had spent two millennia running unchecked by its female counterpart.   (source)
    ego = sense of self-esteem (sense of importance or ability)
  • Their relationship pretty much follows from that initial note, with violent clashes of will and ego, violent sex, needy and pathetic visitations, and eventually hatred and resentment.   (source)
  • "I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny."
    Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego--nothing to arouse either like or dislike.   (source)
    ego = self-esteem (sense of importance)
  • The main character, Gabriel Conroy, must learn that he is not superior to everyone else; during the course of the evening he receives a series of small shocks to his ego that collectively demonstrate that he is very much part of the more general social fabric.   (source)
    ego = sense of self-esteem (sense of importance or ability)
  • By Afghan standards, my question had been bold. With it, I had bared myself, and left little doubt as to my interest in her. But I was a man, and all I had risked was a bruised ego. Bruises healed. Reputations did not. Would she take my dare?   (source)
    ego = sense of self-esteem
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  • It takes that kind of ego to make a man attempt a thing like this.   (source)
    ego = sense of self-esteem (sense of importance or ability)
  • —and no matter what you say about it now, I know that's how I'm going to feel, so if you don't mind, I'll hang on to my splintering ego—thank you.   (source)
  • An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors.†   (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-less" in egoless means without and reverses the meaning of ego. This is the same pattern you see in words like harmless, fearless, and powerless.
  • He rises, returns to them, and dwells with them as an egoless center, through whom the principle of emptiness is made manifest in its own simplicity.†   (source)
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • Et in Arcadia ego.†   (source)
  • Your ego really is that enormous.†   (source)
  • But the Count hadn't the temperament for revenge; he hadn't the imagination for epics; and he certainly hadn't the fanciful ego to dream of empires restored.†   (source)
  • A smaller ego, I thought, but I said nothing.†   (source)
  • It was a seductive ego stroke.†   (source)
  • She started to tell him something Babi had said, about the troublesome marriage of guns and ego, when she heard a commotion coming from the house.†   (source)
  • And even though she's like a black hole at sucking people in, it doesn't take them long to figure out that being friends with her requires fanning the flames of a wildfire ego.†   (source)
  • The girl has an ego.†   (source)
  • Savannah Landmark is nothing but an ego trip.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Shigemura was pleased and claimed that the turbulence of her ego was in the process of being overcome.†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • She had no ego.†   (source)
  • My self-confidence has just gone out the window, and I really need an ego-building text from Six right now.†   (source)
  • No, she got me right where it hurts, right smack in the old ego.†   (source)
  • She is just young and pretty enough to feed the famous writer's ego by nodding enthusiastically at everything he says until he drops her off in front of the cinema.†   (source)
  • Didn't want to completely crush your ego.†   (source)
  • Can we drop your ego for a moment?†   (source)
  • There was no time to worry about a teenage girl's bruised ego.†   (source)
  • It is impossible to imagine Ratwatte not making his case to Kennedy ATC, not because he is obnoxious or pushy or has an enormous ego, but because he sees the world differently.†   (source)
  • I wanted to smack her, right then, the obliviousness, the girliness, of her: trying to get an ego stroke from the husband of a missing woman.†   (source)
  • His consciousness or ego or whatever you want to call it floated somewhere in the megadatasphere datumplane of TechnoCore.†   (source)
  • Trying to build up his own ego by making Johanna think he's got something she wants and he won't give it to her.†   (source)
  • Check egos at the door: When you discuss ideas, label them and write them down.†   (source)
  • Yes, there's ego involved, as much as I'd like to believe otherwise, and my sacrifices would make more sense if a happy ending were taking shape.†   (source)
  • Burnham happened to be standing in the entrance to the house, considering the work, when a young man with a mildly haughty air and an odd strut—not ego, here, but a congenital fault—walked up to him and introduced himself as Louis Sullivan.†   (source)
  • They all assumed we thought we were better than they were, that we had out-sized egos and shot off our mouths without being able to back it up.†   (source)
  • On the other hand, he had underlined the importance of the ego's contribution to knowledge, or cognition.†   (source)
  • That ego which could not accept the presence of an extraordinary human being in its midst was crushed.†   (source)
  • I knew writers were supposed to have big egos, but I guess I didn't understand that meant ingratitude, too!†   (source)
  • I'd never seen Tanya before, but I was sure that meeting her wouldn't be a pleasant experience for my ego.†   (source)
  • That oil money just washed right off, and people were making fortunes in anything that smacked of luxury, anything to feed the egos of the oil guys, who were spending and borrowing money at a rate never seen before or since.†   (source)
  • Luma understood she was dealing with a group of boys with fragile egos and with little self-esteem to spare.†   (source)
  • Nancy is always telling me that I need to pump him up, meaning pump his ego so he will continue to move forward and not go back to his old ways.†   (source)
  • The degree of personality integration and ego function which may be achieved for the long term is hard to predict.†   (source)
  • By then her casebook was filled with terms such as introverted, socially inhibited, lacking in empathy, ego-fixated, psychopathic and asocial behaviour, difficulty in cooperating, and incapable of assimilating learning.†   (source)
  • How do you manage to carry around an ego that size and weight?†   (source)
  • Joan chattered on about Egos and Ids, and I turned my mind to something else, to the brown, unwrapped package in my bottom drawer.†   (source)
  • EGO-LIKENESS: portraiture reproduced through a shigawire projector that is capable of reproducing subtle movements said to convey the ego essence.†   (source)
  • You listen as the clients blather on, egos unchecked.†   (source)
  • He would need to be prepared to study and work as hard as Her Highness and be ready to set his ego aside to serve.†   (source)
  • What I am reading is YOUR OWN ego frantically struggling to make sense out of what happened.†   (source)
  • She left screaming insults about me, my sexual prowess, my ego.†   (source)
  • It's a form of communal ego.†   (source)
  • She's probably trying to decide whether the social boost she would get from having four extra roses is worth the ego hit she would take for Dumpster-diving to get them.†   (source)
  • Now it all seemed fireworks, done for color, sound, the high architecture of words, to dazzle the boys, powder his ego, but with no mark left on retina or mind after the color and sound faded; a mere exercise in selfdeclamation.†   (source)
  • I expected ego.†   (source)
  • And it really wouldn't hurt anything (except my ego) to let him think that she was the one who picked him.†   (source)
  • She thinks Darlene changed over the summer and now has a big ego because she's dating a college guy.†   (source)
  • Which means the switchboard gets jammed with fans calling in, and we have to find dressing room space for seven enormous egos.†   (source)
  • Well, he shrugged his shoulders and placated his dented ego, that's the nice part about these wordly women.†   (source)
  • Here, in excerpt, are a number of other observations contained in the study: "Despite the violence in their lives, all of the men had ego-images of themselves as physically inferior, weak, and inadequate.†   (source)
  • After the unsettling summer, he thought the familiar terrain of school would offer some respite and maybe solace to his bruised ego.†   (source)
  • The next time he got the ball he told me he was going left, was going to stop, and throw in a soft jumper that wasn't going to touch anything but the net and my ego.†   (source)
  • We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.†   (source)
  • Yet she had played up to David Hart, the director, caressing his ego with tender strokes.†   (source)
  • —i nie wodz nasz na pokuszenie ale nas zbaw ode zÅ,ego.†   (source)
  • So Bridge hates band and hates the instructor and hates Kevin, who is a twerp with a disproportionately large ego.†   (source)
  • He has this, like, medieval alter-ego, and on the weekends he and all his friends dress up in medieval clothes and become these characters.†   (source)
  • Paul would tell him: "Remember, serving the poor in Carabayllo is more important than soothing your own ego.†   (source)
  • She destroyed egos by the score and made men hate themselves in the morning for the way she found them, used them and tossed them aside.†   (source)
  • And I will always, every minute that I have rectal ulcers, wear Depends, even though it's a blow to my ego that is almost unbearable.†   (source)
  • In fact, it's still important today to figure out who's a believer and who's just a nutcase—read any paper and you'll see how anger, prejudice, or ego are all routinely passed off as the Word of God, usually with a bomb strapped to it.†   (source)
  • I certainly would have done so in order to get Mahtob and myself back, but it would be a fatal blow to his ego.†   (source)
  • Plus my ego was involved.†   (source)
  • We toasted her with warm congratulations, then we roasted her a little, just to keep her ego in check.†   (source)
  • There was no ego wall—no diplomas because Seth had earned none; no civic club awards; no photos with politicians.†   (source)
  • There's no room for pride or ego, and barely enough room for survival.†   (source)
  • Your sensitive ego can't handle that, and it's easier to make me miss you than to make your parents come home.†   (source)
  • Not just intelligence, but ego and vanity.†   (source)
  • It had to be a bruise to his ego.†   (source)
  • For a man who has achieved so much, Mortenson has a remarkable lack of ego.†   (source)
  • He may cite grand causes and ideology, but it's really just his ego.†   (source)
  • But there's a slight ego gleam in his eyes as he asks this and the answer as a result comes out masked.†   (source)
  • He'll come back; his ego will demand it.†   (source)
  • Bonnie has a very fluid ego.†   (source)
  • How's that for an ego pounding?†   (source)
  • "I saw the damage you could do on a one-day shore leave," Cesar said, playing the ego card.†   (source)
  • While ego crouches inside, aware but never willing to risk it?†   (source)
  • C egos, Señora.†   (source)
  • Other telltale traits: callused hands from firing a weapon, shrapnel wounds from previous missions, and big egos.†   (source)
  • Call it embarrassment, ignorance, ego, whatever.†   (source)
  • It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as.†   (source)
  • His position in society, then, is such that that which drives his ego is encouraged and developed, and that which would drive him toward other men—a weak impulse to begin with—is left to atrophy.†   (source)
  • Does not the absence of good purpose jeopardize the soldier's own ego, thus making him less likely to fight well and bravely?†   (source)
  • "Now that ye understand each other," declared Bruenor, trying to hide his amusement for the sake of Wulfgar's fragile ego, "I'll be leavin' ye."†   (source)
  • Besides, unlike the others, it appealed to his ego, for it required the participation of only one other person: Carn.†   (source)
  • I wouldn't describe Jace's ego as delicate.†   (source)
  • I try to walk around him and his monstrous ego.†   (source)
  • Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira.†   (source)
  • I had no love for Agent Landers—he was a dishonest, womanizing sleaze with the biggest ego I'd ever encountered—but the TBI was known as a top-flight investigative agency.†   (source)
  • Always, always, always referring every goddam thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos.†   (source)
  • To be the best at anything, one has to have a lot of confidence and a certain amount of ego and drive.†   (source)
  • For I feared, simply enough, to be marked by a failure like Corporal Endo's, which was not one of ego or self but of an obligation public and total—and one resulting in the burdening of the entire society of his peers.†   (source)
  • It was about money, sure, but also vision, courage, even a bit of competitive ego.†   (source)
  • Maybe there was something behind the ego and self-righteousness after all—something surprisingly genuine.†   (source)
  • Gabriel broke the news to Fareed gently, so as not to bruise his valuable partner's enormous ego.†   (source)
  • Most of his followers were not married when they arrived, but when Stephen found out he could act as a minister since he had a congregation, he married couple after couple, and even joined a few marriages between already married couples—all four people to each other, considered the heaviest trip for burying your ego and staying above attachments.†   (source)
  • The Bear had once confided to me that Durrell's ego could fit snuglyin the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome but in very few other public places.†   (source)
  • Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps her where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all.†   (source)
  • The sneaking suspicion that this pride had been denied and that, in point of fact, I was the one who was under observation, had an unsettling effect upon my ego.†   (source)
  • They carried with them their complete egos, and born of matter they do ever lust after the flesh.†   (source)
  • But you mustn't do that, he had said ever so lovingly, that's crazy to indulge my little whim like that, darling Sophie, sweet Sophie, I think you must have no ego at all!†   (source)
  • Nevertheless, and you can call it what you like—ego-gratification, whatever—I'm as indifferent to jail as to scandal.†   (source)
  • They had preserved their individually, their independent egos; they possessed self-awareness and the pronoun "I" had a meaning in their language.†   (source)
  • Ego-rovna told me that you two are worrying about whether you should go to the party the day after tomorrow.†   (source)
  • Above all-and this offended my ego-I had been taken lightly.†   (source)
  • Even his gigantic ego could not have hidden from Thomas Hart Benton the unmistakable fact that this was his last term—unless.†   (source)
  • We Japanese, on the other hand, know our egos are nothing.†   (source)
  • He needed more power—not for his own ego but for the sake of the exposition.†   (source)
  • I appealed to his iconoclast, millionaire rodeo-cowboy ego.†   (source)
  • The ego would be hurt, squealing , I have such a temper!†   (source)
  • Looks like someone's in need of an ego-shattering text today.†   (source)
  • But I thought this would still work out, because I had his ego on my side.†   (source)
  • They experienced everything as one big 'ego.'†   (source)
  • If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.†   (source)
  • He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides.†   (source)
  • I never talked about Egos and Ids with Doctor Nolan.†   (source)
  • His ego couldn't take the fact that I dumped him for an older guy.†   (source)
  • Thank me, not him/ Lick my ego instead' But for now his bitterness must be swallowed.†   (source)
  • Bolt's fortyish face was well tended, almost wrinkle-free, pleasantly plump with ego.†   (source)
  • Sometimes I thought they looked kind of interested, but maybe that was just my ego running wild.†   (source)
  • We bend our egos, all of the time, and that is where we differ.†   (source)
  • That's the last thing you need for your ego.†   (source)
  • Does that mean you give up the idea of having an unalterable ego?†   (source)
  • Such an ego simply forbade certain lines of thought.†   (source)
  • Those texts will inflate your ego so much, you'll explode.†   (source)
  • What all these thinkers had in common was that they experienced a divine 'ego' in nature.†   (source)
  • I want him to be forced to start the treasure hunt (his ego will make him finish it).†   (source)
  • The whites, you see, are tempted by their egos and have no means to resist.†   (source)
  • In other words, the 'ego concept' is a 'complex idea.'†   (source)
  • Better hurry up and insult me before my ego gets as big as yours.†   (source)
  • No, why don't you use Hume's method and analyze what you perceive as your 'ego.'†   (source)
  • First I'd have to figure out whether the ego is a single or a complex idea.†   (source)
  • For example, take the question of T—or the ego.†   (source)
  • Both Descartes and Hume had drawn a sharp line between the ego and 'extended' reality.†   (source)
  • In Freud's terms, we develop an ego which has this regulative function.†   (source)
  • So the feeling of having an unalterable ego is a false perception.†   (source)
  • So now I guess I must figure out if I have had a corresponding 'complex impression' of my own ego.†   (source)
  • Everything around us is the major's ego.†   (source)
  • I guess it really isn't all that unusual to surprise oneself with an ugly bit of ego.†   (source)
  • It's hard to argue with a woman when she's got her knee on my ego.†   (source)
  • "You know what his alter-ego name is?" she asked me.†   (source)
  • The more I felt myself getting hot under the collar, the more I tried to brush aside my ego.†   (source)
  • I didn't realize how much being an outsider can hurt, how humiliating and ego-battering it is.†   (source)
  • This is God's universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what's ego and what isn't.†   (source)
  • And her ego in assuming that everyone else is interested in it as well?†   (source)
  • Landing the job so easily had been good for his severely bruised ego.†   (source)
  • They counted on a monstrous ego and he gave it to them.†   (source)
  • It comes down to the almighty ego, doesn't it?" he said.†   (source)
  • But there's barely room enough for his ego and mine in his Mercedes.†   (source)
  • So the carnival feels ulcerated egos miles off and lopes to toast its hands at that ache.†   (source)
  • It hurt her ego that it took a weakling like me to save her.†   (source)
  • Mr. Macho Guy's ego is about to be taken down a notch, and I'm all too happy to be the one to do it.†   (source)
  • As his ego inflated, he momentarily forgot about the mess he was sitting in.†   (source)
  • No, Jace's is sort of the antiaircraft artillery tank of male egos," Simon admitted.†   (source)
  • Fortunately for me, his ego didn't permit him to evaluate your man's abilities correctly.†   (source)
  • And if you want to go run after lover boy and stroke his ego, no one's stopping you.†   (source)
  • It was the romance of the ego, poor kids playing out a fantasy of meretricious fame.†   (source)
  • Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego.†   (source)
  • You sense his total ego, his freedom from limits.†   (source)
  • Curiosity and, he had to admit, ego had him choosing a tough one.†   (source)
  • Okay, I admit I have the ego, but it might get crushed this week.†   (source)
  • She just wanted to inflate his ego ...as if it needed to get any bigger.†   (source)
  • That psychopathic ego of his is the basis for every thing Alex and I mounted.†   (source)
  • She was wary of ego, hero, heights and size.†   (source)
  • "Oh," he said, his ego deflating just as quickly.†   (source)
  • The ego speaking through the assumed second party?†   (source)
  • On any mechanical repair job ego comes in for rough treatment.†   (source)
  • His overblown ego is gonna get him in trouble with the wrong person one of these days.†   (source)
  • She'd tried everything else, she decided abruptly, perhaps she could appeal to his ego.†   (source)
  • Rough on the ego not to be able to show a woman like you what a smart man can accomplish.†   (source)
  • So you arranged her on the bed, indulged yourself, your ego.†   (source)
  • You think it was his ego that got him into television?†   (source)
  • That boosts his ego if you get him going on some medical topic.†   (source)
  • You'll never meet a successful trial lawyer without an ego.†   (source)
  • He'd been rejected, and his ego could not tolerate that rejection.†   (source)
  • Mr. Latino with the big ego got bested by a ditzy, blond bimbo.†   (source)
  • But he'll make the approaches alone; it's part of his ego.†   (source)
  • His ego already shattered by the damage to his career, he found this new assault emasculating.†   (source)
  • My God, it would take Christ himself to decide what's ego and what isn't.†   (source)
  • If nothing else, this soothed her bruised ego.†   (source)
  • An impostor's ego demanded that he be given credit for his kills.†   (source)
  • Listen, pal, I come and go as I please, so check your ego.†   (source)
  • It makes for gusty egos, it makes for appetites.†   (source)
  • You gotta have the ego to want the work.†   (source)
  • The bigger the ego the bigger the fear—†   (source)
  • To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical.†   (source)
  • No matter how cold these fellows are, their egos are immense.†   (source)
  • This is the opposite of anxiety and commonly goes with ego problems.†   (source)
  • It's all too apparent, fraught with unprofessional ego.†   (source)
  • Nobody who's really using his ego, his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies.†   (source)
  • I don't miss his glare, though, as his ego got knocked down a peg.†   (source)
  • I'm surprised there was room in here for the two of us and your inflated ego.†   (source)
  • There was a big ego and not much talent.†   (source)
  • Testing a girl like Brittany could put a serious damper on my ego.†   (source)
  • He has no ego any more—if ever he had one.†   (source)
  • It all becomes a narcotic, and the sirens' songs are really appeals to our egos.†   (source)
  • The ego-climber is like an instrument that's out of adjustment.†   (source)
  • Big firm, hardball tactics, enough success to fuel the ego and keep it hungry.†   (source)
  • I tell myself it's an ego thing, but in the back of my mind I'm worried about her.†   (source)
  • From what he's told me, they made a big ego thing out of the whole outdoor experience.†   (source)
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