self-defeating

adjective

self-de·​feat·​ing ˌself-di-ˈfē-tiŋ 

-dē-

: serving or tending to defeat oneself or itself : counterproductive: such as

a

: acting to defeat its own purpose

a self-defeating argument

You kind of realize that violence can be a self-defeating strategy, because it just gives the other guy an incentive to attack you back in revenge.

—Stephen Pinker

b

: being or involving an attitude of defeatism

Procrastinators tend to be more stressed than other people—even before they start procrastinating. According to a recent study, that's possibly because they have self-defeating thoughts like, "I'm simply too stupid to benefit from more studying, so I'll just hang out on Facebook."

—Shana Lebowitz

Examples of self-defeating in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Since June, the Mets have either been a world-beating team or a self-defeating team without much in between. —Abbey Mastracco, New York Daily News, 6 Aug. 2025

Instead, the civil-rights movement had encouraged a self-defeating posture of victimhood among Black people that young white liberals were all too eager to affirm. —Andrea Long Chu, Vulture, 5 Aug. 2025

In other words, the density requirements the city wants in order to alleviate the high cost of housing are a self-defeating strategy. —Robert Chapman Wood, Mercury News, 31 July 2025

This appeared to be the clear lesson of interwar international politics, when beggar-thy-neighbor trade policies led to self-defeating protectionism, and shortsighted self-interest undermined the League of Nations. —Stacie E. Goddard, Foreign Affairs, 28 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1812, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for self-defeating

• overeating
• overheating
• superheating
• accreting
• competing
• completing
• concreting
• defeating
• deleting
• depleting
• entreating
• preheating

Kids Definition

self-defeating

adjective

self-de·​feat·​ing

ˌself-di-ˈfēt-iŋ

: acting to defeat its own purpose