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  1. death wish love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Psychiatry A desire for self-destruction, often accompanied by feelings of depression, hopelessness, and self-reproach.
  2. n. Psychiatry The desire, often unconscious, for the death of another person, such as a parent, toward whom one has unconscious hostility.
  3. n. A suicidal urge thought to drive certain people to put themselves consistently into dangerous situations.

Wiktionary

  1. n. psychology A desire, especially subconscious, for the death of oneself or of someone else.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. (psychoanalysis) an unconscious urge to die

Etymologies

  1. A calque of German Todeswunsch. (Wiktionary)
  2. Translation of German Todeswunsch. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The death wish is so ingrained in -em, in every polluted cell o" their shriveled old brains, that nothin" could make a difference.”

    Fictionaut: La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth

  • “And, if Kurla was not stupid, which she didn't appear to be despite this terrible infatuation for Prane, she must be as aware of his death wish as of his physical pain.”

    the ship who sang

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hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. urge
  1. impulse

reverse dictionary (3)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. will
  1. death instinct
  1. lose

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Comments

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  • treeseed (n): the conscious or unconscious desire for the death of oneself or of another Jan 23, 2008

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‘death wish’ has been looked up 617 times, added to 3 lists, commented on 1 time, and is not a valid Scrabble word.