self-perfectingn.
/ˌsɛlfpəˈfɛktɪŋ/, U.S. /ˌsɛlfpərˈfɛktɪŋ/ The action or process of perfecting oneself; self-perfection.
ΚΠ
1859 National Rev. Oct. 492 The great part which this ‘Self-perfecting’ by an inward ideal plays in our author's [sc. J. S. Mill's] ethics.
1883 M. W. Hazeltine Chats about Bks. 319 Buddhism is a religion of ethical self-perfecting.
1978 Furrow 29 744 Love is the means whereby this self-perfecting is realized.
2002 Jrnl. Relig. 82 485 Rahner's work includes the elements of analogy, dynamism, sacramentality, self-perfecting, becoming, dialectic, and aesthetics.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, January 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
self-perfectingadj.
/ˌsɛlfpəˈfɛktɪŋ/, U.S. /ˌsɛlfpərˈfɛktɪŋ/ Aiming at or achieving self-perfection; leading to self-perfection.
ΚΠ
1814 J. Beresford Does Faith ensure Good Wks. 11 It is so far from being true, that Faith is to be regarded as a self-perfecting principle... Faith is..itself requiring to be made perfect by Works.
1846 Brownson's Q. Rev. Jan. 125 There is no such thing as self-perfecting institutions... The imperfect can never without the aid of a foreign power become perfect.
1883 H. Maudsley Body & Will 166 Self-love is not despicable, but laudable, since duties to self, if self-perfecting..must needs be duties to others.
1978 R. Mattessich Instrumental Reasoning ii. 26 Natural evolution which reaches from purely physical or mechanistic systems.., to self-reflecting and self-perfecting human beings and their social organizations.
2008 Brit. Jrnl. Sociol. Educ. 29 493 Young people living at the turn of the twenty-first century might be seen..as highly individualized and self-perfecting cosmopolitans.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, January 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1859adj.1814