"Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" is an expression used to describe a needlessly

self-destructive Self-destructive behavior is any behavior that is harmful or potentially harmful towards the person who engages in the behavior. Self-destructive behaviors have been shown by many people throughout the years. It is on a continuum, with one extr ...

overreaction to a problem: "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face" is a warning against acting out of pique, or against pursuing

revenge Revenge is committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Francis Bacon described revenge as a kind of "wild justice" that "does... offend the law ndputteth the law out of office." Pr ...

in a way that would damage oneself more than the object of one's anger.

Origins

It was not uncommon in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

for a person to cut off the nose of another for various reasons, including punishment from the state, or as an act of revenge. In particular, the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Saint Ebbe was said to have severed her own nose to dissuade violation by

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

raiders. Cognitive scientist

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. P ...

notes that the phrase may have originated from this practice, as at this time "cutting off someone's nose was the prototypical act of spite." The expression has since become a

blanket term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other wor ...

for (often unwise) self-destructive actions motivated purely by anger or desire for revenge. For example, if a man was angered by his wife, he might burn down their house to punish her; however, burning down ''her'' house would also mean burning down ''his'', along with all of their possessions. In the 1796 edition of

Francis Grose Francis Grose (born before 11 June 1731 – 12 May 1791) was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He produced ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) and ''A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Pr ...

's ''Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'', "He cut off his nose to be revenged of his face" is said to apply to "one who, to be revenged on his neighbor, has materially injured himself."

References

{{reflist English-language idioms Proverbs

Origins

See also

References