How to Use self-preservation in a Sentence

self-preservation

noun
  • What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs?
    — The Editors, National Review, 6 June 2024
  • Yet the band had predetermined the time frame on the basis of ideas of self-preservation.
    — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 17 Mar. 2025
  • The idea of self-preservation could also kick in, as AI gets even smarter, Bengio said.
    — Arjun Kharpal, CNBC, 6 Feb. 2025
  • The boy in the story has developed some crafty means of self-preservation.
    — Deborah Treisman, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2024
  • There’s a self-preservation in there somewhere, a bit of resilience.
    — Jordan Moreau, Variety, 7 May 2023
  • What’s really cool about the end of Episode 2 is that each of those things [self-preservation and acting on a crush] are at their fullest.
    — Lauren Coates, Variety, 15 Feb. 2025
  • The story of how Landi ended up living on a leaky barge some 30 miles off the shore of Dubai is a tale of self-preservation.
    — Atossa Araxia Abrahamian Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, New York Times, 7 Jan. 2025
  • There’s no judgment here on those who need to step away from soul-crushing updates in the name of self-preservation.
    — Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 12 Feb. 2024
  • Therefore, for the sake of self-preservation, the Middle colonies and South Carolina chose the lesser of two evils.
    — Time, 3 July 2023
  • About the importance of setting boundaries for the sake of self-preservation?
    — Roxana Popescu, San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 Nov. 2023
  • Each of them were able to make a plea before the Traitors picked their victim, with Jeremy taking a unique tact to self-preservation.
    — Dalton Ross, EW.com, 17 Jan. 2025
  • Kenneth is a 38-year-old who’s led a very small, isolated life out of self-preservation.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 14 June 2023
  • But such acts of self-preservation have a collective cost.
    — Steven Levitsky, Foreign Affairs, 11 Feb. 2025
  • Sometimes not speaking out can be an act of self-preservation.
    — Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 3 Apr. 2024
  • But by 2021, leaving it had seemed a necessary form of self-preservation.
    — Alex Morris, Rolling Stone, 4 Jan. 2024
  • Giulia, torn between self-preservation and guilt, slips Tanner a key to a locked office.
    — Martine Paris, Forbes, 20 Mar. 2025
  • These men’s complacency, The Seed of the Sacred Fig argues, isn’t just a selfish act of self-preservation.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 27 Nov. 2024
  • This is in line with the phenomena of self-care and self-preservation as opposed to selfishness.
    — David Oliver, USA TODAY, 8 Mar. 2023
  • Of resourceful self-preservation for the sake of self-preservation alone.
    — Zoë Schlanger, The Atlantic, 28 Nov. 2023
  • Her will—and maybe her capacity for self-preservation—had waned.
    — Amory Rowe Salem and Cheri Lucas Rowlands, Longreads, 9 Jan. 2024
  • Drivers who flee the scene after killing a pedestrian or cyclist often do so in an act of self-preservation.
    — Ryan Lillis, Sacramento Bee, 17 Jan. 2025
  • But the hobby that started as a matter of self-preservation was becoming a side hustle.
    — Liza Weisstuch, New York Times, 8 Sep. 2023
  • The self-preservation factor can’t be ignored and the fear of the unknown are hurdles to moving immediately to a nine-game SEC slate.
    — Michael Casagrande | [email protected], al, 31 May 2023
  • For Cook, the decision to end new music releases on PC was almost an act of self-preservation.
    — Ellise Shafer, Variety, 10 May 2024
  • What real or invented term could be used to describe this extreme form of self-preservation?
    — The Week Staff, The Week, 10 Mar. 2023
  • Put more time and energy into self-preservation and feeling and looking your best.
    — Eugenia Last, The Mercury News, 23 Oct. 2024
  • Stick to the truth, keep your life simple and dedicate your time to self-preservation, learning and staying out of other people’s business.
    — Eugenia Last, The Mercury News, 17 Nov. 2024
  • One of the most popular examples of this entails AI self-preservation.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 4 Apr. 2025
  • When faced with one of the better midfield trios in the land, Manchester United retreated into strange spurts of self-preservation.
    — Carl Anka, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2025
  • Complacency, cowardice and meek self-preservation won’t do here and now.
    — New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 19 Apr. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'self-preservation.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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