ego
UK[ˈiːɡəʊ]US[ˈiːɡoʊ]
n
The self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves.
n
In psychoanalytic theory, the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity.
n
An inflated sense of self-importance; conceit.
Etymology
The word 'ego' entered English directly from Latin, where it was the nominative singular pronoun for the first person, "I". Latin inherited this term from Proto-Italic egō, which in turn descended from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root éǵh₂, also meaning "I". This PIE pronoun is the source of the first-person singular in many Indo-European languages, such as Greek 'egṓ', Sanskrit 'ahám', and Old English 'ic' (which became modern "I"). In its journey into English, 'ego' was adopted not as a common pronoun but as a specialized philosophical and later psychoanalytic term, shifting from a simple self-reference to a concept denoting the conscious self or, in popular usage, an exaggerated sense of self-importance.
Analysis
The word 'ego' is a simplex loanword from Latin, where it functioned as the first-person singular pronoun, meaning "I". It is a direct borrowing with no further morphological segmentation in English.
Examples
His ego was bruised by the criticism.
In Freud's model, the ego balances the demands of the id and the superego.
She has the talent to succeed, but she needs to keep her ego in check.