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I'm looking to translate the phrase "self-made" into an adjective and a noun. Unlike the English phrase where "made" doesn't mean you literally made yourself, in this case I want it to actually mean that you created yourself. In regards to a noun, the context is a group of people that created themselves, so they would call themselves "the self-made".

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Unless you specifically want a Latin compound, the Greek-based terms autogenous (adj.), autogene (n.) suggest themselves. Some Googling shows they're already in existence with more or less the meaning you want.

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  • I like the simplicity and ease that this would be understood. The adjective was easy enough to find, although the noun mostly brought up some german-language results. I might be able to work with autogene and add a suffix the imply further meaning, though.
    – Adam
    Commented Jul 4, 2020 at 18:51
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    I did some poking around and found Autogenitor, which seems like it even more closely aligns with the idea of making/creating oneself. It's not clear to me from the citation on that when it was actually used, although I might use that as the "first" of these people.
    – Adam
    Commented Jul 4, 2020 at 20:23
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A se factus is both an adjective and a noun, as indeed are all Latin adjectives. It literally means "having been made by himself". A se facta is the feminine version of the same noun.

One possible problem with this is that a se factus has to be a third person noun. You can't really say, "I am a se factus." You have to say a me factus sum. The same goes for "you". Whether this is a problem depends entirely on how you mean to use this noun.

You may object that this is a noun phrase and that you want a noun simpliciter. In that case, I don't see why you couldn't prepend sui- to make sui-factus, along the lines of sui-cida (self-killer).

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  • Sui-factus is definitely closer to what I am looking for, although sui could be somewhat of a loaded word to some people because of closeness to suicide. The phrase a me factus sum' is perfect, though.
    – Adam
    Commented Jul 4, 2020 at 13:37

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