The noun for an ungrateful person is "ingrate". So the noun for a selfish person would be...?

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Virginia Lou Profile
Virginia Lou answered

Dear N. Harmonik,

The noun for such a person is 'wretch,' (or maybe it's "in-wretch"). See Sir Walter Scott powerful eloquence, THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL:

The wretch, concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

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Didge Doo
Didge Doo commented
It's perhaps the most magnificent poem ever written. It certainly stands up alongside Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy, and nothing else comes close.

I'm lucky enough to have a very old, very large volume. The cover has fallen off but the footnotes to every page give so much information about the things Scott wrote about.

Did you ever read The Talisman? t was turned into a movie called (I think) King Richard and the Crusaders. There's a very memorable scene in it played by Rex Harrison when it was revealed that, far from being a humble soothsayer-cum-healer, he was actually Saladin himself. One of the very dramatic moments from my cinema memories.
Virginia Lou
Virginia Lou commented
I have not read THE TALISMAN...going to Google it right now, see if it might be something to put on my reading list...would you recommend it, probably yes I am guessing?
Didge Doo
Didge Doo commented
Probably not. It's decades since I read it and it's not stirring very many memories. I don't think it compares with the Lay.
Didge Doo Profile
Didge Doo answered

I think you've beaten us. I can't find an appropriate noun. Perhaps we need to go to another language for it and import their word.

I looked at a few and found that they all use variations of egotist (which is not quite the way we use that in English) but then tried the descendants of Confucius, Lao Tze, and Sun Tzu and came up with this: 自私的人

Remember, you heard it here first.

Jann Nikka Profile
Jann Nikka answered

Narcissistic Ingrate.

Tom  Jackson Profile
Tom Jackson answered

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/selfish+person

egocentric, egoist - a self-centered person with little regard for others

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