self-made
adjEtymology From self- + made.
1
Of a person Having achieved success by one's own efforts, with little to no support from family members and others.
- My father was the quintessential self-made man.
- There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like him, but self-unmade—all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for most things that I could think of.1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter LV, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 531:
1 more example
- “These were people who were self-made, and self-made people made up their own words,” Mr. Sokolowski added.2021 November 9, Max Harrison-Caldwell, quoting Peter Sokolowski, “Words Full of Sound and Fury”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
2
Of a thing Made by oneself instead of bought or taken over.
- Near-synonyms: homemade, homebrew, homespun, handmade; see also Thesaurus:custom-made
- Originally each school was bound only by self-made rules.1905, Fielding Yost, Football for Player and Spectator:
- Related terms
- bootstrapping, Horatio Algerian, rags to riches