How to Use self-sacrifice in a Sentence

self-sacrifice

noun
  • That’s when Walsh — in a remarkable act of self-sacrifice — flung his body on top of the bomb and absorbed the full force of the explosion.
    Deanna Pan, BostonGlobe.com, 29 May 2023
  • And in fields like emergency medicine, an ethos of service and self-sacrifice prevailed.
    Eyal Press, New York Times, 15 June 2023
  • As a result, group members tend to tolerate acts of self-sacrifice in order to advance the group’s needs or to remain in good standing with the group.
    Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Discover Magazine, 23 May 2023
  • All of them came from hard work, genius, and the self-sacrifice of self-experimentation.
    Rachel Lance, WIRED, 16 Apr. 2024
  • That is, after all, the moral imperative at the heart of this particular form of activism: self-sacrifice in the name of a higher political goal.
    Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The New Yorker, 8 May 2024
  • One leaflet explained the value of self-sacrifice more explicitly.
    Michelle Stacey, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 May 2024
  • Continuing down this path of self-sacrifice risks damaging your own prospects for success.
    Tarot.com, Baltimore Sun, 20 Jan. 2024
  • The conduct must involve bravery or self-sacrifice to a degree that distinguishes a person from colleagues on the battlefield.
    Michael D. Shear, New York Times, 5 Sep. 2023
  • Our ideas about what being a good girlfriend entails are ingrained in ideals around perpetual selflessness and self-sacrifice.
    Elizabeth Ayoola, Essence, 13 Mar. 2024
  • That an episode about a man sending his son to prison to avoid responsibility himself got twisted into a story about Logan’s wisdom — or self-sacrifice!
    Lili Loofbourow, Washington Post, 29 May 2023
  • And yet the town has another history too, of resistance and resilience and heroic acts of self-sacrifice which Wilkerson also relates in his low, frank, warm narration.
    Jessica Kiang, Variety, 27 Feb. 2024
  • While short-term fixes like new technologies require less self-sacrifice, treating the symptoms would mean postponing a disaster.
    Nicole Heimann, Forbes, 18 Apr. 2023
  • Yet surely to think of artist-mothers as only suffering or silenced simply reinforces self-sacrifice as the measure of motherhood.
    Ligaya Mishan, New York Times, 1 Dec. 2023
  • Throughout the month Ramadan is celebrated through daily fasting, prayer, charity, focus to God and self-discipline and self-sacrifice.
    The Arizona Republic, 19 Feb. 2024
  • Throughout the month Ramadan is celebrated through daily fasting, prayer, charity, focus to God and self-discipline and self-sacrifice.
    Abigail Celaya, The Arizona Republic, 26 Mar. 2024
  • Davis realizing the gravity of the situation and in a final valiant act of complete self-sacrifice, instantly threw himself upon the grenade, absorbing with his body the full and terrific force of the explosion.
    Mark Inabinett | Minabinett@al.com, al, 26 Jan. 2023
  • The former is a musical triptych that blends bossa nova influences with blaring synths, further exploring the conflicting feelings of self-preservation and self-sacrifice.
    Kyle Denis, Billboard, 21 May 2024
  • The bill prohibited collective bargaining, secondary boycotts and strikes at times of harvest, all of which were used by Chavez and were essential to his nonviolent and self-sacrifice-based protesting principles.
    Javier Arce, The Arizona Republic, 31 Mar. 2023
  • Affleck and Goggins show each brother’s double emotions: their mutual defenses and self-sacrifice.
    Armond White, National Review, 11 Aug. 2023
  • That an episode about a man sending his oldest son to prison to avoid responsibility himself got twisted into a story about Logan’s wisdom - or self-sacrifice! - was troubling and fascinating.
    Lili Loofbourow, Anchorage Daily News, 29 May 2023
  • Many emphasized a spirit of political self-sacrifice underpinning the president’s pullback from the race.
    Laura King, Los Angeles Times, 22 July 2024
  • Medical systems encourage and exploit a culture of self-sacrifice, and workloads are unsustainable.
    Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu, STAT, 24 Aug. 2023
  • Yet what is becoming clearer is that some sort of primitive collectivity — and, with it, organized self-sacrifices by living things — went on for possibly billions of years before multicellular life arose.
    Quanta Magazine, 6 Mar. 2024
  • Another reason is that jihadi ideology fosters a culture of self-sacrifice.
    Thomas Hegghammer, Foreign Affairs, 24 Aug. 2021
  • The airport skirmish was a sign of things to come: Russia consistently underestimated its opponent, and everyday Ukrainians continually surprised everyone but themselves with their adaptability and willingness to self-sacrifice.
    Jordan Michael Smith, The New Republic, 2 June 2023
  • In Latine culture, motherly self-sacrifice is rooted in marianismo and familismo, an ideology that values dedication, commitment, and loyalty to family.
    Maria Matta, refinery29.com, 26 Sep. 2023
  • Psychologists such as Meaghan Rice see toxic femininity as the inverse of toxic masculinity – a constellation of characteristics like meekness, emotionalism, passivity and self-sacrifice.
    Karrin Vasby Anderson, Fortune, 8 Aug. 2023
  • Managers who routinely expect self-sacrifice negatively influence organizational culture.
    Constance Dierickx, Forbes, 17 July 2023

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

Last Updated: