tragic flaw
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.48 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A personality trait or other characteristic of a real or fictional individual which is immoral, destructive, or otherwise faulty and which leads to the ruin or profound suffering of that individual.
Example Sentences
- "When a heroine's tragic flaw takes the form of uncontrollable love for an outlaw, the paths of momentary glory can lead but to defeat."
- "If the jury, who begin their final deliberations tomorrow, find the black All-American hero guilty of murdering his white wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, they will have concluded that he succumbed to the oldest tragic flaw in the book, the green-eyed monster of jealousy."
- "The control-freak instinct runs too deep. . . . This runs the risk of becoming a tragic flaw."