self-protection

[self-pruh-tek-shuhn, self-]

noun

1. protection of oneself or itself.

self-protection

noun

1. the act or an instance of protecting or defending oneself

Other Word Forms

• self-protecting adjective
• self-protective adjective
• self-protectiveness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of self-protection¹

First recorded in 1855–60

Example Sentences

Women will often align themselves with the dominant person in a room as a form of self-protection, she explained.

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“I realized I wasn’t going to survive, so I made it my full-time job to defeminize myself as a form of self-protection.”

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“Fear is a powerful motivator, and today we’re seeing how fear can galvanize people into making decisions for their own self-protection,” Brown says.

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“Murderers, thieves, drug dealers — theirs is the basic instinct of self-protection,” one lawyer said in her opening statement.

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Here, the blurring is visual: Sometimes Leonard floats into the past looking like Gere, who wears the character without a shred of self-protection as the lens gawks at his raw skin.

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