How to Use self-destruction in a Sentence

self-destruction

noun
  • Who could fail to be entertained by such a saga of self-destruction?
    — Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 5 Oct. 2023
  • Venu also set a self-destruction date on itself of nine years.
    — Tony Maglio, IndieWire, 16 Aug. 2024
  • Oasis often seemed to teeter at the edge of self-destruction.
    — Rob Picheta, CNN Money, 28 Aug. 2025
  • The pressure of new fame was so intense that the singer kept dancing with self-destruction.
    — Lauren Groff, New York Times, 17 Oct. 2024
  • To move away from feedback loops of self-destruction and violence.
    — David Lipset, Los Angeles Times, 12 Jan. 2024
  • Any band that’s successful opens the door to excess, self-destruction.
    — John Hopewell, Variety, 17 Dec. 2024
  • One of those benefits, strangely enough, seems to be programmed self-destruction.
    — Quanta Magazine, 6 Mar. 2024
  • Just three minutes later came more self-destruction from Atletico.
    — Dermot Corrigan, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2026
  • This dark drama tracks five Irish siblings bound by history, love and a knack for self-destruction.
    — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 7 Oct. 2025
  • And when that culture celebrates self-destruction, the consequences show up on our streets, in our schools and in our homes.
    — S.t. Barnes, Baltimore Sun, 4 May 2025
  • The dysfunction and self-destruction is nothing short of stunning.
    — S.e. Cupp, New York Daily News, 8 Feb. 2024
  • This anti-art horror film appeals to the hipster appetite for self-destruction.
    — Armond White, National Review, 17 Nov. 2023
  • The daffodil does not fight the sufferings of life but gives way to it with an intentional act of self-destruction.
    — Big Think, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Eugen looks for forgiveness and a second chance, but old wounds threaten to trap him in a cycle of self-destruction.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • To turn your back on the sun and worm your way into ever colder and darker places seems like a deliberate act of self-destruction.
    — Chris Wheatley, Longreads, 16 Mar. 2023
  • In Season 2, the show is richer and pricklier, keyed in to the nuances of self-destruction.
    — Margaret Lyons, New York Times, 20 Apr. 2023
  • Should scientists intervene when faced with the possible self-destruction of a species?
    — Lise Pedersen, Variety, 24 Apr. 2026
  • Her self-destruction was almost necessary because her old mechanisms for coping no longer served her.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 10 May 2023
  • Sylvia Plath narrates her self-destruction Hughes doesn’t wonder.
    — Nora Krug, Washington Post, 6 June 2023
  • In her early 40s, Anne Marie Chaker was on a path to self-destruction.
    — Janelle Griffith, PEOPLE, 26 Nov. 2025
  • There should be a sense of wounding loss in the disintegration — the self-destruction, even — of their small, frail family.
    — Guy Lodge, Variety, 17 May 2024
  • In that attempt, the Starship failed, as did SpaceX’s self-destruction system.
    — William Gavin, Quartz, 14 Mar. 2024
  • An important note is that failure does not necessarily equate to jail time or death or complete self-destruction.
    — Literary Hub, 23 Jan. 2026
  • My short time together with my firstborn daughter is not reduced to the nightmare of self-destruction that followed her passing.
    — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 25 June 2024
  • Ghosts and vengeful spirits lurk and linger, tempting and prodding our characters toward self-destruction.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 30 Oct. 2024
  • Ballads of death and self-destruction suffused with strength and determination.
    — Jeff Weiss, Spin, 21 Aug. 2023
  • Humanity failed miserably to defend itself against the plague of self-destruction.
    — Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 2 Nov. 2023
  • The singer combines the genre’s enduring themes of heartbreak and self-destruction with camp humor and a distinctly Irish sense of the absurd.
    — Roisin Kiberd, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2023
  • And with Democrats unable to figure out their next moves and a news media terrified of retribution, there may be no one left to stop the self-destruction.
    — S.e. Cupp, New York Daily News, 4 Feb. 2025
  • There is a perverse tendency, in such situations, to treat the artist’s act of self-destruction as somehow a final artistic flourish.
    — Chris Wiley, The New Yorker, 16 Apr. 2024

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

Last Updated: