altruism.
Regard for others, both natural and moral without regard for oneself; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness.
Meaning & usage
Regard for others, both natural and moral without regard for oneself; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness.
Action or behaviour that benefits another or others at some cost to the performer.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₂élyos Proto-Italic *aljos Proto-Indo-European *-teros Proto-Italic *-teros Proto-Italic *aliteros Latin alterī Vulgar Latin *alterui Old French autrui French autrui Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ῐσμός (-ĭsmós)bor. Latin -ismusbor. French -isme French altruismebor. English altruism From French altruisme, which was coined in 1830 by Auguste Comte from autrui (“of or to others”) + -isme, from Old French, from Latin alteri, dative of alter (“other”) (whence also English alter). Apparently inspired by the French Latin legal phrase l'autrui, from le bien, le droit d'autrui (“the good, the right of the other”). Introduced into English by George Henry Lewes in 1853, in his translation Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences, 1, xxi.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.