Etymology

self-destructive

Today it means: Causing injury to oneself or harm to one's interests. Full definition →

English destructive ← Middle English self- ← Old English self-
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*swé?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*selbʰ-
  3. Proto-Germanic*selbaz
  4. Old Englishself
  5. Old Englishself-
  6. Middle Englishself-
  7. Englishself-
  8. Englishdestructive
  9. English todayself-destructive

From self- + destructive.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.