Self-made

Origin

- + made

Full definition of self-made

Adjective

1. Of a person, having achieved success by one's own efforts.My father was the quintessential self-made man.
• 1852-1853, Charles Dickens, S:Bleak House/Chapter LV, 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.
2. Of a thing, made by oneself instead of bought or taken over.
• 1905, Fielding Yost, S:Football for Player and Spectator, Originally each school was bound only by self-made rules.