ˈē(ˌ)gō sometimes ˈe(- or ˈā(- noun
( -s )
Etymology: New Latin, from Latin, I — more at i
1. : the self especially as inside one as contrasted with something outside (as another self or the world): as
a. metaphysical philosophy
(1) in Descartes : the soul or an underlying mental or spiritual substance
(2) in Kant : a transcendentally postulated unity either of apperception or of the morally free person — called also pure ego
(3) in Fichte : pure self-determining activity positing itself — called also pure ego
b. empirical philosophy
(1) in Hume : a complex of ideas or a system of successive mental states
(2) in Kant : the conscious subject of experience
(3) : the consciousness of an individual's being in distinction from other selves
c. : self 3
2.
a. : self-esteem
few things are more soothing to a battered ego than an afternoon's shopping — Ralph Linton
: egotism
nice boy … not a speck of ego in him — Clifford Odets
b. : will
Stalin chose Malenkov as the most faithful projection of his own political ego — Reporter
3.
[translation of German ich ]
psychoanalysis : the largely conscious part of the personality that is derived from the id through contacts with reality and that mediates the demands of the id, of the superego, and of external everyday reality in the interest of preserving the organism
4. ethnology : an individual person taken as a point of reference in a particular framework (as a kinship system)