self-destructive
Americanadjective
-
harmful, injurious, or destructive to oneself.
His constant arguing with the boss shows he's a self-destructive person.
-
reflecting or exhibiting suicidal desires or drives.
Careless driving may be a self-destructive tendency.
Other Word Forms
- self-destructively adverb
Etymology
Origin of self-destructive
First recorded in 1645–55
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I’ve written previously about Partovi’s moral outrage over the number of severely ill people who either are not deemed “gravely disabled” or who spin repeatedly through three-day holds and return to the same self-destructive routines.
From Los Angeles Times
There is nothing new about the bad conscience or self-destructive urge that Baudrillard identified within Western civilization, or about its deeply rooted conflict between incompatible tendencies we might call liberation and domination.
From Salon
And what he sees, Page argues, is our own reflection — humanity, in all its fractured and flailing self-destructive foolishness.
From Los Angeles Times
The long-suffering recording engineer reaches his breaking point after becoming totally fed up with the band’s self-absorbed, self-destructive behavior.
From Los Angeles Times
Target-date funds are permanent autopilot portfolios that neutralize self-destructive investing behavior.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
