death instinct

American  

noun

1. suicidal tendency or inclination; predisposition to self-destruction.

2. Psychoanalysis. an impulse to withdraw or destroy, working in opposition to forces urging survival and creation life instinct.

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Etymology

Origin of death instinct

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

It was Freud who posited the Nirvana principle as an innate psychic drive or death instinct that aims to end life’s inevitable tension.

From The Guardian • Jan. 25, 2017

It’s because of the death instinct that a perfectly nice person dates a string of losers: you tell yourself that you want to move forward, but actually, on some level, you want to go back.

From The New Yorker • May 11, 2015

They're called the Eros and the Thanatos, known as the life instincts and the death instinct.

From Time Magazine Archive

Perhaps the best known of Freud's theories about death is the concept of a death instinct, which he formulated in 1920.

From Time Magazine Archive

Later, Freud formulated his famed "death instinct," into which suicide fitted neatly as death's triumph over the life instinct.

From Time Magazine Archive