self-defeating

adjective

self-de·​feat·​ing ˌself-di-ˈfē-tiŋ 

-dē-

: serving or tending to defeat oneself or itself : counterproductive: such as

a

: acting to defeat its own purpose

a self-defeating argument

You kind of realize that violence can be a self-defeating strategy, because it just gives the other guy an incentive to attack you back in revenge.

—Stephen Pinker

b

: being or involving an attitude of defeatism

Procrastinators tend to be more stressed than other people—even before they start procrastinating. According to a recent study, that's possibly because they have self-defeating thoughts like, "I'm simply too stupid to benefit from more studying, so I'll just hang out on Facebook."

—Shana Lebowitz

Examples of self-defeating in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

His eldest, under achieving, self-defeating Nick (James Norton) is in the process of torpedoing his own engagement. —Matt Grobar, Deadline, 25 Nov. 2024

Rich and Andrew agreed that a line for the bathroom is a self-defeating cycle on airplanes. —Zach Wichter, USA TODAY, 13 Nov. 2024

Researchers at the University of Granada found that people who use self-defeating humor tend to have higher psychological well-being, especially in terms of happiness and, to a lesser extent, sociability. —Mark Travers, Forbes, 3 Nov. 2024

Leveraging private capital will help eliminate the ironic and self-defeating need to borrow from these same adversaries to close our budget shortfalls. —Charles Beames, Forbes, 30 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1812, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

self-defeating

adjective

self-de·​feat·​ing

ˌself-di-ˈfēt-iŋ

: acting to defeat its own purpose