Word.ws English Dictionary

self-interrupt

self-interrupt verb: to interrupt (an ongoing task or activity, or the person performing it) due to distractions, or shifting priorities.

Verb

self-interrupt (third-person singular simple present self-interrupts, present participle self-interrupting, simple past and past participle self-interrupted)

  1. (intransitive, transitive) to interrupt (an ongoing task or activity, or the person performing it) due to distractions, or shifting priorities.
    • The class discussion that ensued after her statement confirmed that having limited technology distractions helped the students realize that not only did they self-interrupt themselves, but they were causing their own perceptions of overload by being so responsive to others.2016, Dawna Ballard, Matthew McGlone, editors, Work Pressures: New Agendas in Communication, Taylor & Francis, page 12
    • As was mentioned in a previous section, the lure of digital technology may also be having a wider impact on the potential for individuals to automatically ‘self-interrupt’ their current activities.2017, Lee Hadlington, Cybercognition: Brain, Behaviour and the Digital World, SAGE Publications, page 117

Forms of self-interrupt

third-person singular presentself-interrupts
present participleself-interrupting
past participleself-interrupted
pastself-interrupted

Origin of self-interrupt

From self- + interrupt.

Words formed from self-interrupt

Questions about self-interrupt

What does self-interrupt mean?
Self-interrupt means to interrupt (an ongoing task or activity, or the person performing it) due to distractions, or shifting priorities.
What part of speech is self-interrupt?
Self-interrupt is a verb.
What is the past tense of self-interrupt?
The past tense of self-interrupt is self-interrupted.

Words near self-interrupt in the dictionary

  1. self-interested
  2. self-interestedness
  3. self-interests
  4. self-interpreter
  5. self-interpreters
  6. self-interrupt
  7. self-interrupted
  8. self-interrupting
  9. self-interruption
  10. self-interrupts
  11. self-interview

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: self-interrupt (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-interrupt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/self-interrupt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.