[A jocular formation on WE and EGOTISM.] An obtrusive and too frequent use of the first person plural by a speaker or writer.
1797. Brit. Critic, IX. 424. A more trifling matter of objection is the use of the plural form [we] throughout in speaking of himself…. In an individual preacher … it seems a strange desertion of propriety: and if used to avoid egotism, leads to that which … if we did not too much respect etymology, we might jocularly style Wegotism.
1811. Miss L. M. Hawkins, C’tess & Gertr., I. Introd. We may have blended wegotism and egotism; but Cæsar writes ‘dixeram’ and ‘scripsimus.’
1881. H. J. Jennings, Curios. Crit., 156. Individual merit would no longer be merged, as it is now, in what has been called the ‘wegotism’ of the press.
