SELF-CONTROL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does self-control mean? 

• SELF-CONTROL (noun)
  The noun SELF-CONTROL has 2 senses:

1. the act of denying yourself; controlling your impulses

2. the trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior

  Familiarity information: SELF-CONTROL used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SELF-CONTROL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of denying yourself; controlling your impulses

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

self-control; self-denial; self-discipline

Hypernyms ("self-control" is a kind of...):

control (the activity of managing or exerting control over something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "self-control"):

abstinence (act or practice of refraining from indulging an appetite)

ascesis; asceticism (rigorous self-denial and active self-restraint)

mortification ((Christianity) the act of mortifying the lusts of the flesh by self-denial and privation (especially by bodily pain or discomfort inflicted on yourself))

Sense 2

Meaning:

The trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

possession; self-command; self-control; self-possession; self-will; will power; willpower

Hypernyms ("self-control" is a kind of...):

firmness; firmness of purpose; resoluteness; resolution; resolve (the trait of being resolute)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "self-control"):

nerves (control of your emotions)

presence of mind (self-control in a crisis; ability to say or do the right thing in an emergency)

 Context examples 

“You will excuse my calling so late,” she began, and then, suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife’s neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The tracts implicated in the children's brains also involved executive function, which is involved in self-control.

(Too Much Screen Time Changes Structure of Toddlers' Brains, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

He had evidently self-control; so when the attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse and grief was terrible.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

With all his firmness and self-control, thought I, he tasks himself too far: locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, confesses, imparts nothing.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strong—and her temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, self-control; but it wants openness.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Although the oldest, Jo had the least self-control, and had hard times trying to curb the fiery spirit which was continually getting her into trouble.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Fresh upon his months of mastery over his own team-mates, it was beyond his self-control to stand idly by while another devoured the meat that belonged to him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Elinor honoured her for a plan which originated so nobly as this; though smiling to see the same eager fancy which had been leading her to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining, now at work in introducing excess into a scheme of such rational employment and virtuous self-control.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)