The tent you are looking for is "self-referential".

Is the word "non-self-referential"

self-referential?

Is it non-self-referential?

> shibboleth" works perfectly well as a shibboleth

You know why that is, right? The concept is named after the use of the word.

The category I'm thinking of is a subset of self-referential; a concept which is encapsulated in its expression, where it is an example of itself: "This is a sentence" or "is sentence fragment" or `<html>`. It's an admittedly fuzzy/arbitrary category that I made up. :)

> Is it non-self-referential?

Haha, nice. I also like "non-descript".

> The concept is named after the use of the word.

Cool, TIL :)