{
  "id": "bruised-ego.hurt",
  "term": "bruised ego",
  "sense": "hurt",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 16,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A self model reporting that others read its reach as smaller than it reads it, a loss to its pride that moves none of its walls.",
  "folk_gloss": "hurt pride after a setback or slight",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "reach.action",
      "pride.state",
      "report.information",
      "others.distinct-entities",
      "read.information",
      "small.size",
      "loss.economic",
      "motion.movement",
      "none.quantity",
      "wall.range-end"
    ],
    "interaction": "The self-read and others' read of reach diverge downward; nothing it can do has changed, only its standing in others' models, and the report is of that gap.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a hurt with no wall moved",
      "pain located in the gap between two reads"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Sports reporting often says a heavily favoured team that loses to an outsider leaves with a bruised ego rather than a lost season.",
      "domain": "sport"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "shame.emotional",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "shame reports a near wall; a bruised ego reports only a lowered read of its reach"
    },
    {
      "id": "restore-dignity.status",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "the report that restoring dignity answers"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "bruised ego",
    "bruised egos"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-bruised-ego.hurt"
}