self-shieldedadj.
/ˌsɛlfˈʃiːldᵻd/, U.S. /ˌsɛlfˈʃildᵻd/ 1. Chiefly of a person: that is shielded or protected by his or her own personal qualities, actions, etc.
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the world > action or operation > safety > protection or defence > [adjective] > protected or defended > by one's or its self
self-defended1743
self-shielded1843
1843 J. C. Prince in Manch. Guardian 9 Aug. 3/1 Nor doth self-shielded Innocence deny My warm caresses as I wander by.
1885 Pennsylvania School Jrnl. Mar. 352/1 Might not boys and girls grow up with principles so sensitive to truth and purity that they would be forever self-shielded from the false and the foul?
1912 J. L. Allen Heroine in Bronze iii. i. 194 The face propped between the palms, the eyes turned from me toward the garden. It was the posture of a self-shielded listener.
1991 Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) 18 June a6/2 Our law-makers have managed to plunge us [sc. the state of New York] even deeper..into the disdain of the taxpayers whose money they scornfully waste with self-shielded impunity.
2001 B. Graham Hit to Kill viii. 166 In the U.S. view, there was something downright perverse in the notion that a self-shielded United States would be less likely to protect an unshielded Europe.
2. Of an electrical cable, an electrical or magnetic instrument, etc.: that is shielded by its own design or configuration against external electric or magnetic fields, or so as to enclose or contain its own electric or magnetic field.
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1924 M. B. Sleeper Super Heterodyne: Hook-ups for Eight Types Super Sets v. 30/2 It is astonishing how little effect body capacity has on operation of this set, due to the self-shielded transformers.
1940 Students' Q. Jrnl 11 29/1 Transformers have been placed as far away from the instruments as practicable, even though these latter are self shielded.
1964 R. F. Ficchi Electr. Interference vii. 119 A self-shielded distributor cap is available commercially that makes use of the same physical configuration as a nonshielded cap.
1987 Jrnl. Magn. Resonance 74 554 All studies were done on a 1 m bore imaging/spectroscopy research system fitted with..whole body self-shielded gradient coils.
2006 R&D Mag. Mar. 21/1 If the instrument is self-shielded, its physical size is much larger, but its external magnetic field is contained within its perimeter.
3. Of a radioactive body, substance, etc., or other source of radiation: that itself absorbs some or all of the radiation it produces; that is constructed with built-in shielding. Also of a body or substance exposed to radiation: that prevents or attenuates radiation reaching its interior as a result of absorption by its outer parts.
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1948 Non-destructive Testing Summer 33/1 A very small, self-shielded, self-rectifying tube..to provide, for the first time, a wholly safe, convenient and adequate X-Ray unit for dentistry.
1958 Proc. 2nd U.N. Internat. Conf. Peaceful Uses Atomic Energy XIII. 433/2 The analytical treatment of self-shielded or lumped poisons.
2005 G. B. Saha Basics PET Imaging x. 167 Most compact cyclotrons are self-shielded with lead blocks.
2010 Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 122 262/2 Most of the dust in a galaxy..is self-shielded, and so unaffected from the interstellar radiation field.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, January 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1843