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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance: "There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris” ( McGeorge Bundy).

Wiktionary

  1. n. Excessive pride, presumption or arrogance (originally toward the gods).
  2. n. Unchecked arrogance

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. overbearing pride or presumption

Etymologies

  1. Greek, excessive pride, wanton violence; see ud- in Indo-European roots.

Examples

  • “But then again – hubris makes men believe they are immune to normal cause and effects – hubris is the underminer of the very egos it inflates”

    Think Progress » Indictment Dissected: A Campaign Against Wilson

  • “I know, I know, indulging in hubris is something heretofore unknown among writers on the internet.”

    October 2005

  • “When Aristotle immortalized the term hubris, he could well have been talking about Sean Graney, the experimental Chicago theater director who, this fall, decided to adapt and stage not one Sophoclean drama, but all seven at once.”

    News - chicagotribune.com

  • “When he ends up taking the option of quitting, 1,576 miles into the race, Ms. Snyder seems genuinely pained; she is too much a fan to mention the word hubris.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Coast to Coast in Eight Days

  • “Whether or not the euro follows his steep downward arc, Greek debt, like the Greek word hubris, comes to mind.”

    The Huffington Post: James Berman: DSK and the Greek Myth of "Reprofiling"

  • “Those who know me that my hubris is a personality flaw.”

    A Plea From APEX Digest...

  • “One is that when presidents get re-elected, they tend to have what I call hubris, presidential hubris.”

    CNN Transcript Mar 14, 2007

  • “We Greeks call it hubris, and it comes right before the fall, when you are not willing to actually look at the reality of what is happening.”

    CNN Transcript Apr 18, 2004

  • “MARTIN ANDERSON: The story I tell at the end of the book illustrates one of the more extreme examples of what I call hubris on today's campus, the degree to which, I think, the institution of our universities has lost in integrity.”

    Impostors in the Temple

  • “If anyone remembers Use Your Illusion now, though, it's as a byword for hubris, pomposity and a terminally unfashionable strain of stadium metal that was duly killed by grunge. 2011's retro fest will apparently pass with no homage to what was, in 1991, the biggest thing in pop music.”

    The Guardian: Never mind Nevermind, 1991 was all about Guns N' Roses

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  • Jungjoe My uncle was the most hubris person I know Apr 15, 2012

  • scete When human hubris intrudes or manipulates the sacred, the consequence is inevitably humiliation Dec 4, 2008

  • d4divine Oedipus' overwhelming hubris led to his ultimate destruction May 29, 2008

  • d4divine Oedipus' overwhelming hubris led to his ultimate destruction May 29, 2008

  • d4divine Oedipus' overwhelming hubris led to his ultimate destruction May 29, 2008

  • katiefellows In the TV show Strangers With Candy, one of Principal Blackman's (played by Greg Hollimon) most famous sayings is "hubris, overweening pride". Gotta love it! Apr 7, 2008

  • sionnach Warning!! Doggerel Attack!!!

    Elegy for Eliot : The Lovesong of A.G. Spitzer


    Let us go then, you and I
    While the evening is spread out against the sky
    Like the Baghdad skyline behind Wolf Blitzer
    Or a criminal taken down by A.G. Spitzer


    In the room the women come and go
    “I’m called an escort, not a ho.�?


    The corridors of power are lonely, late at night
    The bad guys all day long you have to fight
    You deserve a little reward – maybe a cookie?
    Nope – even a hero needs some nookie.


    In the room the women come and go
    “Plastic works, a cheque, or cash to go.�?


    Temptation looms – a vision, out of reach.
    The voice of conscience: “Don’t you eat that peach!�?
    Too late! Our hero reaches for his cheques.
    Another politician laid low by the lure of sex.


    In the room the women come and go
    “Eliot? Oh yeah, huge ego and libido.�?


    I should have been a pair of ragged claws
    scuttling across the shores of silent seas.
    Instead my taste for high-priced whores
    Has made of me the emperor of sleaze. Mar 13, 2008

  • m8eyboy I found it in a footnote on P 174 of Christopher Booker's "The Seven Basic Plots":

    Hence the true meaning behind the Greek notion of hubris, originally derived from hyper meaning 'over'. We shall look later at why the ancient Greeks saw the tragic pattern as one of hubris followed by nemesis. Although in the modern world the term hubris is often understood to mean a kind of cosmic arrogance or price (of the type inviting a fall), its derivation shows how it was originally meant to convey precisely that idea of 'stepping over the bounds' discussed here.
    May 11, 2007

‘hubris’ has been looked up 8906 times, loved by 31 people, added to 156 lists, commented on 8 times, and has a Scrabble score of 11.