Word.ws English Dictionary

self-punishment

self-punishment noun: the act of punishing oneself.

Noun

self-punishment (uncountable)

  1. The act of punishing oneself.
    • […] O Jealousie (said she) the phrensie of wise folkes, the well-wishing spite, the unkinde carefulnesse, the selfe-punishment for others faults, and selfe-miserie in others happinesse, the cousin of envie, daughter of love, & mother of hate, how couldest thou so quietly get thee a seate in the...1590, Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, Cambridge University Press, published 1912, Book 2, Chapter 25, p. 308
    • How could he appease the wrath of Him who died on the cross, save by years of bitter supplication and self-punishment?1853, Charles Kingsley, chapter 24, in Hypatia

Questions about self-punishment

What does self-punishment mean?
Self-punishment means the act of punishing oneself.
What part of speech is self-punishment?
Self-punishment is a noun.

Words near self-punishment in the dictionary

  1. self-publishing
  2. self-pubs
  3. self-pulsate
  4. self-pulsation
  5. self-pulsations
  6. self-punishment
  7. self-qualification
  8. self-qualified
  9. self-qualifies
  10. self-qualify
  11. self-qualifying

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: self-punishment (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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