self-destroyern.

1645 J. Lilburne England's Birth-right Justified 7 If he plead guilty, he shall become a self-destroyer (contrary to the law of Nature, which teacheth a man to preserve, but not destroy himself).

1658 R. Baxter Call to Unconverted 243 Its apparent that you are self-destroyers, in that you draw the matter of your sin and destruction even from the blessed God himself.

1713 M. Henry Self-consideration Necessary to Self-preservation 22 Self-flatterers and Self-deceivers will prove in the end to have been Self-destroyers.

1789 Family Sketches II. xlix. 249 Edmund and I endeavoured to convince him, that he was a self destroyer, in refusing to believe the assurances, which he had received of being Mr. Howard's son.

1831 2nd Ann. Rep. Sc. Temperance Soc. 68 Formerly a drunkard was regarded as a harmless man, injuring no one but himself—now, he is looked upon as a self-destroyer, and a corrupter of the morals of all around him.

1956 Ethics 66 200/2 This conception of man carries within it the germs of the sin of pride and leads to the conception of man as self-destroyer.

2007 W. B. Rideout Sherwood Anderson II. xiii. 371 His shocking visit with Emerson and his view of him as a self-destroyed man may have made him think of the other, more dramatic self-destroyer [sc. Emanuel Carnevali].

a1646 W. Twisse Riches of Gods Love (1653) ii. 44 Is he not rather at odds with himselfe in making a man's fortitude to be a selfe destroyer?

1654 R. Whitlock Ζωοτομία 376 No man is Master of his own Body, and therefore selfe-destroyers have not common buriall.

1689 C. Mather Memorable Providences sig. G8 A Natural Destemper, is that by which the Devil takes advantage to get the souls of Self-Destroyers into his bloody hands.

1774 J. Herries Addr. Crime of Suicide 21 If this is the character and disposition of the Self-destroyer, how depraved and horrid does it appear!

1826 W. E. Andrews Exam. Fox's Cal. Protestant Saints 473 Fox being in want of a saint-martyr thought proper to canonize a self-destroyer.

1886 R. L. Stevenson Strange Case Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde viii. 84 By the crushed phial in the hand..Utterson knew that he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer.

1906 Jrnl. Royal Soc. Antiquaries Ireland 36 296 The people took great offence that a self-destroyer should rest among the bones of their departed dead.

1986 N.Y. Times 6 Apr. (Book Review section) 24/2 The famous self-destroyers—Berryman, Sexton, Plath.