self-annihilation
Americannoun
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self-destruction; suicide.
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surrender, abnegation, or immolation of the self in mystic contemplation of or union with God.
noun
Etymology
Origin of self-annihilation
First recorded in 1640–50
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
This is a story about the self-annihilation queer people face when they mold themselves to straight expectations, told by a lesbian filmmaker working in maybe the most stereotypically heterosexual genre — the Christmas romantic comedy.
From New York Times ● Nov. 25, 2020
His sense of literary honour comes out strongly in these letters; and his feeling about priority is again shown in the admiration expressed in his 'Recollections' of Mr. Wallace's self-annihilation.
From Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1 by Darwin, Francis, Sir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
