Definition of "self-abnegation" []

• The setting aside of self-interest for the sake of others or for a belief or principle. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In subsequent speeches, as well as in an advice column he began writing for Ebony in 1957 and in a book he published the following year, King endorsed Christian self-abnegation as a means to attain “first-class citizenship.”"
• "In advocating nonviolence, King asked African Americans to “present our very bodies” as living sacrifices to attain citizenship and respectability, and offered himself as a model of self-abnegation."
• "However – does gentleness inevitably entail self-abnegation?"