life instinct

noun

Origin of life instinct

First recorded in 1905–10

death instinct

noun

suicidal tendency or inclination; predisposition to self-destruction.

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

Origin of death instinct

First recorded in 1915–20

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for life instinct

Historical Examples of life instinct

The gradual disappearance of my “life-instinct,” which already began a few years ago, is now more marked, more precise.
Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916
Olga Metchnikoff

British Dictionary definitions for life instinct

life instinct

noun

psychoanal the instinct for reproduction and self-preservation

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

life instinct in Medicine

life instinct

n.

In psychoanalytic theory, the instinct of self-preservation and sexual procreation.

death instinct

n.

A primitive impulse for destruction, decay, and death, manifested by a turning away from pleasure, postulated by Sigmund Freud as coexisting with and opposing the life instinct.Thanatos