entitledness

English

Etymology

entitled +‎ -ness

Noun

entitledness (uncountable)

1. The quality of feeling entitled, convinced of one's own deservingness or superiority, and of shifting blame and responsibility to others; demandingness; pretense.
   • 1988, Zeev Ben-Sira, Politics and primary medical care: dehumanization and overutilization, Gower Pub Co:

     Particularly striking is the fact that almost all (97 X) Labor fund P.C.P.s blame the system for creating a sense of entitledness — a trend evidently conforming with the Labor fund members' greater likelihood to attribute the responsibility for their health to the fund and the physician (cf. pp.42-48).

   • 2000, Jeannette Angell, The Illusionist, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 307:

     “Shut up,” she said. “Just shut up, Victor. We're all going through a hard time, and I'm getting a little damned tired of your entitledness. If Monsieur de Saint—Pierre says that Albert wrote it, then I am prepared to accept that. I suggest that you either do the same, or leave.”

   • 2000, Carl E. Braaten, Robert W. Jenson, Sin, Death, and the Devil, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, →ISBN, page 40:

     The attitude of the beloved is never one of merit or entitledness: "I had this coming," but precisely the opposite: "I don't deserve this." As the poets are well aware, the beloved never feels worthy of the advances of the lover.

   • 2005, Stuart Carr, Mac MacLachlan, Eilish McAuliffe, Psychology of Aid, Routledge, →ISBN:

     Figure 11.1 pictures this process of perceived need gradually deteriorating into outright 'Pay Me!' Aid officials the world over have in the past reported that a sustained flow of aid eventually results in a culture of 'entitledness' (Gergen and Gergen, 1971).

   • 2007, Anthony Giardina, White Guys: A Novel, Macmillan, →ISBN:

     “It's okay for me to be here, isn't it?” he asked, as though there could be no reason why he should be asked to leave. He went on eating, and I couldn't help, in the midst of the discomfort I knew I should be feeling—and did feel, though only a little—a faint amusement at his entitledness. It had never been a problem for him at Winerip, not from the beginning: the parties and the Boston caterers and the good poured champagne.

   • 2012, Anthony Giardina, Norumbega Park: A Novel, Macmillan, →ISBN:

     All the boys seemed to be working hard to affect the louche attitude, the “Under My Thumb” air of sexual entitledness, the thatchy, unkempt hair of a young Mick Jagger.

   • 2013, Susan Miller, Shame in Context, Routledge, →ISBN, page 113:

     […] constant focus on his self-image, his notion of being special (set apart from others and superior to them), and the associated insistence that ordinary rules of reality did not pertain to him. At times, there was a hostile entitledness about him.

Translations

feeling convinced of one's superiority or deservingness

• Polish: roszczeniowość (pl) f