self-defeating

1. 1.

   acting to defeat its own purpose

   “it is self-defeating...to ignore the progress of events”

   Similarunsuccessful

Questions about self-defeating

What does self-defeating mean?

self-defeating means "acting to defeat its own purpose".

How many syllables are in self-defeating?

self-defeating has 5 syllables and divides as self--de-fe-a-ting under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is self-defeating a common word?

self-defeating is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.