death wish

noun

: the conscious or unconscious desire for the death of oneself or of another

Examples of death wish in a Sentence

Have you seen the way she drives? She must have a death wish.

Recent Examples on the Web

The idea that anyone not afflicted by a death wish might initiate a high-speed accident with a thirty-eight-ton tractor-trailer seemed ludicrous. —Patrick Radden Keefe, New Yorker, 13 Apr. 2026

An outsider romance peppered with gallows humor and bubbling over with giddy optimism, Harold and Maude is a life-affirming, weirdly wonderful film about a rich kid with a death wish and his love affair with an exuberant 79-year-old woman. —Debby Wolfinsohn, Entertainment Weekly, 13 Apr. 2026

Michaela Dorfmeister, the two-time Olympic champion, went so far as to ask if Vonn had a death wish? —Scott M. Reid, Oc Register, 8 Feb. 2026

And the recent rise of raw milk (a.k.a. untreated milk that is lauded by some as a health cure-all and others as a bacteria-spiked death wish) left us wondering: Which type of milk is actually healthiest? —Margaux Anbouba, Vogue, 6 Feb. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1856, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for death wish

• bluefish
• catfish
• codfish
• crawfish
• dogfish
• finfish
• flatfish
• goldfish
• groundfish
• kingfish
• offish
• redfish

Medical Definition

death wish

noun

: the conscious or unconscious desire for the death of another or of oneself

called also destrudo