How to Use self-destructive in a Sentence

self-destructive

adjective
  • This speaks to something in him that’s both self-centered and self-destructive.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 1 Sep. 2024
  • So what’s the key to the relaxed, yet guarded, sense of respect Icelanders hold for their at-times self-destructive home?
    Hannah Towey, Condé Nast Traveler, 1 July 2024
  • As grand metaphors for self-destructive behavior go, this is a pretty clever one.
    Chris Bellamy and Stephanie Kaloi, EW.com, 2 May 2024
  • Rage with nowhere to go gets directed at the self as depression, self- hatred, and self-destructive acts.
    Melissa Petro, TIME, 4 Oct. 2024
  • Blessed with good health and a knack for avoiding the addictions that claimed so many of his contemporaries, Alpert is the opposite of the self-destructive artist.
    Paul Keegan, Hartford Courant, 11 May 2024
  • Why can’t your friend recognize her self-destructive foibles?
    Chelsea Leu, The Atlantic, 5 Sep. 2024
  • What remains is the puzzle of how such an epically self-destructive fiasco could have happened in the first place.
    Gideon Rose, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024
  • My daughter, who was 16 at the time, fell into a deeply self-destructive place after her dad died from cancer at the beginning of her junior year in high school.
    Harriette Cole, The Mercury News, 26 Jan. 2024
  • Here, our favorite red-spandex-wearing Merc must deal with the grief and self-destructive tendencies brought about by his girlfriend’s death.
    Diego Ramos Bechara, Variety, 24 July 2024
  • While Hayes' Levant is an acerbic, self-destructive, sad-sack of a human being, there's nothing to hate or even dislike about him.
    Lester Fabian Brathwaite, EW.com, 25 Apr. 2023
  • How to resolve the uncomfortable ones, transform the self-destructive ones, and nurture the, well, nurturing ones.
    Nell Frizzell, Vogue, 17 Feb. 2024
  • Roberta’s wild, self-destructive expressionism feels like new ground for her, and the change in mode and class sometimes fits her awkwardly.
    Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 20 Nov. 2023
  • This path from being blinded by pain and making self-destructive choices to self-acceptance and love.
    Holly Jones, Variety, 30 Nov. 2023
  • The actress faced a rough patch in 2008 and was hospitalized for five months as a result of opiates usage and self-destructive behavior.
    Justin Curto, Peoplemag, 18 Apr. 2023
  • In those days his curiosity was stronger than his self-destructive impulse.
    Elizabeth Winder, Rolling Stone, 24 July 2023
  • Fewer episodes and less time spent on the self-destructive café manager would have kept the storyline squarely on Rocco’s psyche.
    Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 5 Mar. 2024
  • There’s haphazard dirtbag camaraderie, shared self-destructive tendencies, and heartfelt lines of tribute, and the rest of the record toggles among these states as each of the women step in to sing.
    Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2023
  • There’s something noble about all that yearning; noble and self-destructive.
    Odie Henderson, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Mar. 2023
  • But the quiet only amplified her most self-destructive thoughts.
    Los Angeles Times, 5 Mar. 2023
  • The fact the new app has nonetheless attracted so many users highlights the power of network effects and the self-destructive tendencies of Twitter.
    Bykylie Robison, Fortune, 7 July 2023
  • Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.
    Sarah Yang, Sunset Magazine, 20 June 2023
  • The disdain for Gaetz is so palpable across much of the GOP conference that some members have begun to publicly rebuke him as self-destructive and selfish.
    Marianna Sotomayor, Mariana Alfaro, Paul Kane and Leigh Ann Caldwell The Washington Post, Arkansas Online, 3 Oct. 2023
  • The actress plays Stephanie Patrick, a self-destructive woman who spiraled after her family was fatally killed in a plane crash.
    Stephanie Sengwe, Peoplemag, 9 Aug. 2024
  • Pétain, always cautious and pessimistic, soon concluded that further fighting was self-destructive, and urged an end to it.
    Robert O. Paxton, Harper's Magazine, 17 Dec. 2023
  • Training has become a big part of my life again after almost 10 years of more unhealthy and self-destructive habits during my early struggling acting years.
    Kathryn Shattuck, New York Times, 18 June 2023
  • Just as no man may interfere with the self-destructive inclinations of Herzog’s avian nihilist, neither can anyone do much to arrest the deathward drift of the pay-TV bundle.
    Anthony Crupi, Sportico.com, 26 July 2024
  • Like Al Pacino’s self-destructive character, Saddam and his sons were destined to meet violent ends; the only question was when and how.
    Gideon Rose, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024
  • Brexit is the stupidest, most self-destructive act a country could undertake.
    Anna Russell, The New Yorker, 5 July 2024
  • Another self-destructive event is set to occur at the same time: Nearly $11 billion will disappear from the Defense Department’s hands.
    Mike Gallagher, WSJ, 28 Sep. 2023
  • As Sandy, Payton Reilly gets entire songs, and a couple of room-wrecking rampages, to show off her comical self-destructive low-esteem issues.
    Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 22 Feb. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'self-destructive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: