Is there an adjective for someone who has a "sense of entitlement"?

When someone has unreasonable expectations and feels that he is owed by others, this trait is described as a "sense of entitlement". But how do you refer to the person who has this trait other than calling him "a person with a sense of entitlement"?

If there is no single word to describe this kind of character, can you suggest a few equivalent phrases for "a person with a sense of entitlement"?

Solution 1:

You can use "entitled" as an adjective; if the context is right it is implied that this refers to an unreasonable expectation of entitlement.

Here is an example of this word being used this way, found via Wordnik:

I swear these flippin entitled Americans need to just shut the heck up and get what's taken 60 years to make happen and I'm including the public option.

–"Chris - Seattle", September 10, 2009 at 4:23 pm, comment on "In selling health care, Obama's numbers pick may be telling", CNN

Solution 2:

Since you are referring to unreasonable expectations I think you may describe this person as assuming:

• presumptuous; arrogant.

• expecting too much; presumptuous; arrogant

(from TFD)

Solution 3:

Spoiled comes to mind - assuming that you look on entitlement negatively, as is now typically the case in the US.

[There was a time (I'd guess up until, say, the Ronnie Ray-gun era) when entitled meant what it said: the person deserves X, as in s?he has worked to merit a pension or s?he is entitled to respectful treatment because s?he is human. Now it seems that the suggestion is quite the opposite: that the person does not deserve X but somehow thinks s?he does or somehow obtained an official but illegitimate (in the eyes of the one judging) claim to it. At first it was innuendo or mocking: we know that the person is not really entitled to X (wink). Nowadays, it seems that this is the only meaning left. Sigh. And yes, IMHO, sense of entitlement, which is clearly an objectionable attitude, bleeds onto the meaning of entitlement itself, poisoning it.]

Solution 4:

An entitlement attitude is one of the most significant hallmarks of a narcissist - that is, someone suffering a narcissistic personality disorder, destructive narcissistic personality disorder (watch out for those - they can do real harm!), or even someone who has "narcissistic traits" (as opposed to the full-blown personality disorder). Much has been written about narcissists in recent years and the term, rightly or wrongly, has come to be synonymous with a person who believes that they are entitled to special treatment and privileges at all times.