Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Protection of oneself from harm or destruction.
- n. The instinct for individual preservation; the innate desire to stay alive.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The preservation of one's self from destruction or injury.
Wiktionary
- n. The instinctive behaviour that protects oneself from harm.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The preservation of one's self from destruction or injury.
WordNet 3.0
- n. preservation of yourself from harm; a natural or instinctive tendency
Etymologies
- self- + preservation (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The crimes of the secular state in the name of self-preservation must make us yearn for strong correctives to capitalist parliamentarian incarnations of democracy.”
The Huffington Post: Feisal G. Mohamed: Evaluating the Post-Secular Return to Belief
“She clasped her forearm in her hand, squeezing with all her might in order to keep herself in check—to keep herself from lashing out in the name of self-preservation.”
“It may be one of the consequences of our at-large voting system - it may also be apathy or willful ignorance in the name of self-preservation - but chances are you've never heard of most of the candidates running for mayor and council in the Vancouver civic election.”
“It had been many years since he’d felt any hesitation at all about killing anyone, but he was conscious of having to deliberately keep reminding himself that in the name of self-preservation he had to kill her.”
“It's called self-preservation - we're born with it.”
“So the Republican side had a mood of self-preservation, a sense that they would be loyal to the White House in their fashion.”
“It could be that religious believers deign to tolerate other religions purely for self-preservation, calculating that since no single religion has majority status it is best to grant a full measure of liberty to other faiths, to ensure maximum liberty for oneself.”
“Instead, he spent the rest of the war in Palestine, a fact that caused a rift with his family and surviving Jewish associates who accused him — wrongly — of abandonment and self-preservation.”
“Namely, that the euro was tanking on rumors about the secret meeting, so it was "self-preservation.”
“If you go by the ways of the body, it knows only self-preservation and procreation.”
The Huffington Post: Sadhguru: Yoga: A Dimension Beyond the Physical
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘self-preservation’.
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A Civil Action (1998)
Words from a 1998 'A Civil Action' film.
plaintiff, preside, eligible, bachelor, eligible bachelor, tannery, self-preservation, thump, punitive, disservice, humiliate, moot and 27 more...
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I'm scared one day I'll say it, "I do...
heartbeats, tessellate, reinvent, collarbones, entangle, frightened, wrists, furniture, variations, unnoticed, astride, motion and 80 more...
Tweets
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