Positive character trait
Altruistic
Concerned with helping others without seeking a personal reward.
3 ready sentences Updated Run by Adrian Nutiu
What it looks like
- Helps when there is nothing to gain: no thanks, no credit, no favor owed.
- Accepts a real cost, such as time, money or comfort, so that someone else is better off.
- Keeps quiet about what they gave, so the help is not traded for credit.
Fits when an action is chiefly intended to benefit someone else
Not when the benefit is incidental to profit, status, or reciprocal exchange
How to say it
Replace the brackets with what the person actually did.
There is no resume line for this one: claiming altruism undercuts it, and it is a formal word that sounds odd about yourself. Show the work you did for others, or let a reference name it.
Fills [Name] in the reference and the report card comment, ready to copy.
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Reference or recommendation [Name] is altruistic: over [period] they gave [time, skill or money] to [people or cause] with no benefit to themselves, and we only learned of it from [the people they helped].
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Report card comment [Name] helps others without wanting anything back, such as giving up break time to help a classmate catch up.
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In a story, shown not told The match came through for a stranger in another state. She booked the week off work, told her manager it was a minor operation, and asked the hospital not to pass on her name.
The donor's altruistic decision carried no naming rights or special access.
The definition and the sentences are written for this site; dictionaries are used to check the sense. How words are chosen and reviewed.