Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Injurious to one's or its own purposes or welfare.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Something, such as a plan or action, which contains elements that will cause it to fail.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective acting to defeat its own purpose
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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This is also the self-defeating formula that leads people to agree with ideas that they know are illogical.
The 7 Glenn Beck 2011
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The first step of Prime Time involves recognizing your self-defeating statements, so I want you to think of all the words and phrases you most often use to describe yourself.
Body by Design Kris Gethin 2011
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This is the self-defeating formula that leads people to begin and maintain romantic relationships with manipulative partners who they know at some level are telling them everything they want to hear while violating their trust over and over again.
The 7 Glenn Beck 2011
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This is the self-defeating formula that leads people to stay wedded to alcohol or drugs when they know they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.
The 7 Glenn Beck 2011
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This is the self-defeating formula that leads people to invest their money with fraudulent advisers and money managers.
The 7 Glenn Beck 2011
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Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has weighed in on the fierce budget battle now gripping Washington, warning deep cuts could be "self-defeating" to the "still-fragile recovery".
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Tocqueville thought the greatest long-term threat to democracy in America would be the tyranny of a majority seduced into self-defeating short-term thinking by excessive democratic largesse.
James Bacchus: Can We Still See and Serve Our True National Self-Interest? James Bacchus 2011
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Tocqueville thought the greatest long-term threat to democracy in America would be the tyranny of a majority seduced into self-defeating short-term thinking by excessive democratic largesse.
James Bacchus: Can We Still See and Serve Our True National Self-Interest? James Bacchus 2011
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The thing is that while Frum might be right (and I highly recommend “Dead Right” because I think he did an excellent job of diagnosing a lot of the problems that conservatives had in trying to reduce the size, scope and cost of government – a lot of which remains true), a lot of us who are nominally in the conservative movement think that this sort of strategy is ultimately self-defeating.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Jonathan Rauch on David Frum on the Conservative Movement 2010
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But this is also the self-defeating formula that leads people to dismiss great opportunities that they know deep in their hearts feel right even when conventional wisdom says they are wrong.
The 7 Glenn Beck 2011
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