A language learners’ forum

Hello!

Does anybody have a word for this? It's tricky to find.

The other word I was stuck on was a synonym for "Common Sense", which ended up being "Prudence" as best as I could find. As well, to be taking as much as one can without going too far was considered to be the word "Indulgence".

It was not so much "Ego", as that was more one's image of their self, either shared by others or exclusively held by them! It was not "Pride", as that is more just basking in your accomplishments. It wasn't "Recognition", as that is merely to identify with something ultimately as either true or false; to not linger in a hazy realm of thought about that given item of thought.

So, what word looks like it would be a synonym for "Self Preservation"? It is only a single word I am looking for, hopefully not too short or too difficult & long that ends up sounding like some other strange thing! Words like "Googleplex" would not be what I were looking for haha!

What are your thoughts?

mewardship

How about "caution"?

Caution means more than self-preservation, but self-preservation generally includes caution.

I wasted a significant amount of time looking for synonyms for "Self Preservation" and actually there really aren't any words I can find in English which convey the exact same meaning. I think you're stuck with "Self Preservation".

My first thought was "survival". But then I thought maybe you could go with "autoembalmment", depending on the nuance.

Since self-preservation needs the 'self' to point to whom the preservation refers I'm not sure you will find a single word. Even though there are others like it such as 'self-importance' which could be encapsulated in a single word: pompous/pomposity.

For common-sense, maybe 'judicious(ness)', which is not very sonorous as a noun.

Often the entire meaning can't be present in a single word. Though it's interesting when you look at how another language can fit it all into a word, but will have something else it needs two or more words to express, which again is caught by a single word in another language.

I personally consider "self-preservation" to be a single (compound) word, akin to Russian "самосохранение". It just happens that in Russian the same compound (consisting of the same parts) is written without any spaces or hyphens, while the English one has a hyphen in it. I don't know the goals of the OP, but what's wrong with the word anyway (if it's not just simple curiosity)?
Wiktionary contains translations of this word into a bunch of languages, and they all seem to be compounds as well. Can anyone offer a language where this concept is not expressed as a compound?

rdearman wrote:I wasted a significant amount of time looking for synonyms for "Self Preservation" and actually there really aren't any words I can find in English which convey the exact same meaning. I think you're stuck with "Self Preservation".

Haha, I know! Sometimes searching for things can be a bit daunting. We often don't know where to begin, and to what extent to persevere with finding it.

It's sort of like the idea of someone who says "Self preservation is part of life. If 10 families are bickering about something, our Saturday night is worth more! We have to leave, even though we may have been capable of solving their quarrel given enough time to explain ourselves."