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Glite Dictionary
🤖 To destroy itself 💥 To ruin oneself
to self-destruct

to self-destruct

15 6.7
To ruin your own life or job by your actions
  • verb
  • /ˌsɛlf dɪˈstrʌkt/
translation icon : autodestruirse
  • This missile is programmed to self-destruct if it goes off course.
  • watch you self-destruct
  • let her self-destruct
  • want to self-destruct

Do something to serve humanity instead of selfishly self destructing.

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Examples

  • Come on down if you want to self destruct or I'll blow it up for you.

  • I, for one, find it very amusing to watch you self-destruct!

    Blog text (34)

  • This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

    Shoot or Be Shot! (2002)

  • That helps us not just divorce and self destruct, but actually helps us get through the problem and and get stronger.

    Two Hot Takes

  • How does it feel to self-destruct your new 'acquisition'?

    Blog text (24)

  • Is there something in the nature of humanity that wants to self-destruct?

    Millennium After the Millennium (2019)

  • I encourage you not to get trapped into thinking that the US will self-destruct.

    Blog text (7)

  • I am initiating the self-destruct sequence...

    Fiction book (2000)

  • In politics, there's nothing more fun than watching a politician self-destruct.

    Blog text (14)

  • George Wallace's campaign peaked and then began to self-destruct.

    Academic text (1992)

Synonyms

to self-terminate
vsto self-destruct
  • NSFW
1 9.8

To stop something yourself, for example closing an account, making a device stop working, or ending your own life

focuses on deliberate severe harm often caused by an automatic process
to self-destroy
vsto self-destruct
8.4

To cause a machine or person to stop working by their own action

is often triggered automatically rather than by personal action

Antonyms

self-preservation
32 3.9

A natural desire to protect yourself from harm

How Self-Destructive

to self-destruct
15 6.7
to kill oneself
  • Informal
9 8.1

Surface Forms

self-destruct infinitive
self-destructed past
self-destructed past participle
self-destructing present participle
self-destructs third person singular

Morphology

self-destruct = destruct (transparent) = self + destruct

Meaning is directly built from 'self' + 'destruct' (to destroy itself); the composition is a straightforward reflexive prefixation.

Etymology

Self-destruct combines self 'oneself' and destruct 'to destroy', which is the same idea as the familiar word destroy. So to self-destruct is to 'destroy yourself', either literally or by choices that ruin your life or work.