Word.ws English Dictionary

self-flagellation

self-flagellation noun: the practice of whipping oneself as penance for sins.

Noun

self-flagellation (countable and uncountable, plural self-flagellations)

  1. (historical) The practice of whipping oneself as penance for sins.
  2. (informal) Intense feelings of guilt.
    • It was [...] followed by feelings of immense guilt and self-flagellation. What did I do wrong? What did I forget?2020, Louise Curtis with Sarah Johnson, A Nurseʼs Story: My Life in A&E During the Covid Crisis, Pan Books, page 70

Forms of self-flagellation

pluralself-flagellations

Questions about self-flagellation

What does self-flagellation mean?
Self-flagellation means the practice of whipping oneself as penance for sins.
What part of speech is self-flagellation?
Self-flagellation is a noun.
What is the plural of self-flagellation?
The plural of self-flagellation is self-flagellations.

Words near self-flagellation in the dictionary

  1. self-finances
  2. self-financing
  3. self-finished
  4. self-finishing
  5. self-fitting
  6. self-flagellation
  7. self-flagellations
  8. self-flagellatory
  9. self-flattery
  10. self-focus
  11. self-focused

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: self-flagellation (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “self-flagellation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/self-flagellation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.