self-defeating

[self-di-fee-ting, self-]

adjective

1. serving to frustrate, thwart, etc., one's own intention or interests.

   His behavior was certainly self-defeating.

self-defeating

adjective

1. (of a plan, action, etc) unable to achieve the intended result

Example Sentences

The lesson for Democrats is one the GOP knows from hard experience: Futile shutdown gestures are usually self-defeating.

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Brian Strow, an economist and dean of the business school at Florida’s Palm Beach Atlantic University, told me by email that cutting off a natural supply of the world’s top innovators and thinkers is self-defeating.

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That idea echoes the long-debated “culture of poverty” theory, which holds that poverty can perpetuate itself through self-defeating norms and expectations.

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But it’s self-defeating for Democrats to dismiss her story as sour grapes.

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In reality, clear alternatives were then available, rendering the use of nuclear weapons unnecessary and immoral as well as, given the future nuclearization of the planet, strategically self-defeating.

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