self-fulfilling
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.70 in modern English
24
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
6
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Describing a prediction that causes itself to occur as predicted.
Example Sentences
- "The prediction of poor turnout for the event was self-fulfilling: once people heard the turnout would be bad, they didn't come."
- "Whether or not we believe in astrology is irrelevant; the question is, did the Magdalenians? If so, then in a self-fulfilling prophecy they may have been organizing their lives according to a religious belief system, and not simply an economic or ecological one."
- "The big question, I believe, is whether the Italian and maybe Spanish crises are the kind of thing that might be brought under control by ECB bond purchases. This is often phrased in terms of whether they are facing liquidity or solvency problems; but I think it’s better phrased in terms of the possibility of self-fulfilling crises, a la Obstfeld. […] So there is a reasonable case that what we’re seeing in Italy is a self-fulfilling crisis trying to happen, in which fear of default is precisely what leads to default."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *swé? Proto-Indo-European *selbʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *selbaz Old English self Old English self- Middle English self- English self- English fulfilling English self-fulfilling From self- + fulfilling.