Self-defeating

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Containing elements that will cause it to fail; destined not to succeed by its very nature.

    "Cutting off your nose to spite your face is self-defeating."

Adjective
  1. 1
    acting to defeat its own purpose wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
cutting off one's nose to spite one's faceself-stultifying

Example

More examples

"This is a difficult responsibility to embrace. For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes subjugating one another to serve their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating."

Etymology

From self- + defeating (present participle of defeat).

Related phrases

self-defeating prophecy

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.