self-annihilation

American  

[self-uh-nahy-uh-ley-shuhn, self-] / ˈsɛlf əˌnaɪ əˈleɪ ʃən, ˌsɛlf- /

noun

1. self-destruction; suicide.

2. surrender, abnegation, or immolation of the self in mystic contemplation of or union with God.

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self-annihilation British  

noun

1. the surrender of the self in mystical contemplation, union with God, etc

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Etymology

Origin of self-annihilation

First recorded in 1640–50

Example Sentences

In 2025 they discovered that the existential crisis it described wasn’t after all as big as any of the ones they face from military, industrial collapse, demographic self-annihilation and industrial decay.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 15, 2025

It’s a quintessential Joan Didion image: She imagines the day after the human race is gone, capturing both apocalyptic self-annihilation and wonder at the tremendous efforts we make to do something meaningful with our time.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 4, 2025

Aronofsky and Hunter leave little to the imagination, emphasizing at every graphic turn that, for Charlie, food isn’t the stuff of life-giving nourishment, but a vector for compulsion and self-annihilation.

From Washington Post • Dec. 20, 2022

As the sociologist Émile Durkheim understood, those who seek the annihilation of others are driven by desires for self-annihilation.

From Salon • May 4, 2021

As for me who pretended to nothing, I thought all succeeded well, inasmuch as all tended to self-annihilation.

From The Autobiography of Madame Guyon by Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte