How to Use death wish in a Sentence

death wish

noun
  • Have you seen the way she drives? She must have a death wish.
  • Some people would’ve seen that as a death wish.
    — Cora Engelbrecht, New Yorker, 1 Mar. 2026
  • Their argument was that the call of the void is not in fact a death wish.
    — Philip Maymin, Forbes.com, 25 May 2026
  • If the answer is yes, liberalism would seem to have a death wish.
    — Damon Linker, The Week, 29 Sep. 2021
  • And slowly, the balance shifts from a death wish to a survival instinct.
    — Alex Davies, WIRED, 11 July 2018
  • My bucket list was morphing into a death wish, even before my first pass across the grass.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 31 July 2020
  • Even Sigmund Freud believed that all humans have a death wish.
    — Donna Sarkar, Discover Magazine, 14 Mar. 2022
  • The Big Other grants the Deliriant’s death wish, but in her own way.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 18 Dec. 2025
  • Peters’ own death wish rose up soon after his run for governor, as his bars struggled to stay in the black.
    — oregonlive.com, 22 July 2019
  • As with this season’s premiere, Jamie’s death wish is denied and thank goodness for that.
    — Roxane Gay, Glamour, 24 Sep. 2017
  • The plot of the new novel is centered on B, an immortal warrior with a death wish.
    — Lisa Respers France, CNN, 23 July 2024
  • Eco is only for those with a death wish; this car’s acceleration is leisurely enough.
    — cleveland, 8 Feb. 2020
  • When your choices are to go on a death wish of a mission or die, someone will always die, one way or another.
    — Washington Post, 6 Aug. 2021
  • Especially when their lives are in the hands of a crazypants liar with a death wish who tried to get his ex-girlfriend/boss killed.
    — Annalee Newitz, Ars Technica, 14 Nov. 2017
  • Did Trump's 'death wish' comment toward McConnell go too far?
    — Joel Mathis, The Week, 12 Oct. 2022
  • Should the guy who spends his spare time dodging bullets really be lecturing him on death wishes?
    — Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 17 Apr. 2026
  • In African landscapes that are green, brown, blue, and yellow, painting your butt with sharp streaks of black and white seems like a death wish.
    — WIRED, 28 Nov. 2022
  • Is leaving high blood pressure untreated really a death wish?
    — Isabella Cueto, STAT, 11 Oct. 2022
  • 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
  • Despite her theatrical death wish pronouncement, Guyger and her defense team are still fighting to save her from life in prison.
    — Kirsten West Savali, Essence, 27 Sep. 2019
  • Angelika balances between a death wish and a lust for life, trapped in a fragile family system.
    — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 21 Aug. 2025
  • The challenge itself is as amusing as always, but damn do these British queens have a death wish … for their fellow contestants.
    — Brian Moylan, Vulture, 25 Feb. 2021
  • The many forms of Darby Allin’s death wish continues to be a story in 2024.
    — Alfred Konuwa, Forbes, 12 Oct. 2024
  • Wearing your brand new white heels out on a Friday night is basically a death wish, but sometimes, the outfit requires the risk.
    — Danielle Flum, Seventeen, 18 June 2019
  • Aslan is one of a rising number of young men in the West Bank with such a death wish, according to Palestinians in the camp.
    — Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR, 7 Sep. 2024
  • And these were just the animals and machines trying to do you in, not to mention the glare of the sun, the Feds, or some bad-seed trimmer with a crush or a death wish.
    — Literary Hub, 22 June 2026
  • Most of the people sharing photos of domineering goats and marauding boars are not expressing a latent death wish.
    — Amanda Hess, New York Times, 17 Apr. 2020
  • Is the speaker appreciating a peaceful winter scene or barely suppressing a death wish?
    — Maggie Doherty, The New Yorker, 24 Feb. 2025
  • Ditlevsen also wrote candidly about her death wish, with unsentimental emotional force.
    — Nina Siegal, New York Times, 10 Jan. 2023
  • 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

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'death wish.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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