From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishself-righteousˌself-ˈrighteous adjective GOOD/MORALproudly sure that your beliefs, attitudes, and morals are good and right, in a way that annoys other people – used to show disapproval SYN sanctimonious She’s a vegetarian, but she’s not at all self-righteous about it. —self-righteously adverb —self-righteousness noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
self-righteous• We have to learn tolerance, to look at our behaviour and to stop being self-righteous.• I've got nothing against vegetarians, but some of them are so self-righteous!• Bike riders seems to have this self-righteous attitude toward people in cars.• This is the kind of self-righteous behaviour at which Mrs Thatcher's Government excels.• But Springer, the former mayor of Cincinnati, insists on offering a self-righteous lecture at the end of each program.• Ego is the self-righteous martyr inside each of us.• In this self-righteous mood he drove home.• His grandparents were stern and self-righteous people.• He had entered the police station in a storm of self-righteous protest and had been by turn hectoring, belligerent and spiteful.• She watched him in self-righteous silence.• He doubted her policies and the self-righteous way in which they were promoted. 