Pride is an inwardly directed emotion that carries two meanings. With a negative connotation pride refers to an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments, often used synonymously with hubris. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a satisfied sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, and a fulfilled feeling of belonging. Philosophers and social psychologists have noted that pride is a complex secondary emotion which requires the development of a sense of self and the mastery of relevant conceptual distinctions (e.g., that pride is distinct from happiness and joy) through language-based interaction with others. Some social psychologists identify it as linked to a signal of high social status. In contrast pride could also be defined as a disagreement with the truth. One definition of pride in the first sense comes from St. Augustine: "the love of one's own excellence". A similar definition comes from Meher Baba: "Pride is the specific feeling through which egoism manifests." In this sense, the opposite of pride is either humility or guilt; the latter in particular being a sense of one's own failure in contrast to Augustine's notion of excellence.

Pride is a high sense of the worth of one's self and one's own, or a pleasure taken in the contemplation of these things