self-hate

noun

: hatred directed toward oneself rather than toward others : self-hatred
Humans need self-love, not self-hate, but when you have a disorder which makes you anti-social, it's hard to be kind to yourself.Jo Challacombe

Examples of self-hate in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
There was some internal kind of self-hate, cultural hate in some ways. Julissa James, Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2024 Hot With a Vengeance shows why beauty should be a tool of self-expression, not self-hate. Shannon Carlin, TIME, 27 June 2024 And then the awful demons of self-hate and self-contempt, a hugely negative self-image, took its place in the center of the victim’s being. . . . Mark Hertsgaard, TIME, 7 May 2024 When offered as just-in-time tools within popular social media platforms like Tumblr and Discord, these programs reduce near-term ratings of hopelessness and self-hate and increase desires to stop self-harming, with effects considered large within the scientific community. Jessica Schleider, STAT, 1 Apr. 2024 The big one on the cons list was loss of anonymity, but probably that was a way of writing self-hate or something. Lacey Rose, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 June 2023 Waters’ antipathy toward C.J., much like John Claggart’s hostility toward Billy Budd, has a strong element of self-hate. Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 26 May 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1576, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of self-hate was in 1576

Dictionary Entries Near self-hate

Cite this Entry

“Self-hate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-hate. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on self-hate

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!