Cut off your nose to spite your face
Meaning
To harm oneself or act against one's own interests purely out of anger or resentment towards another person.
Origin
The vivid, self-mutilating image behind this phrase has roots stretching back centuries, but it gained its sharpest edge in English folklore, especially during the 18th century. One compelling—and likely apocryphal—tale tells of a medieval French convent facing the arrival of a new, exceptionally strict and beautiful abbess. The existing nuns, fearing her reforms and jealous of her allure, decided to commit a radical act of protest. They intentionally disfigured themselves, cutting off their noses and lips, hoping their gruesome appearance would drive the abbess away in horror. Their desperate, self-destructive act perfectly embodied the futility of inflicting harm upon oneself in a misguided attempt to spite another, cementing the phrase as a powerful metaphor for self-inflicted woe.
Examples
- Refusing the generous settlement offer just to make a point about the injustice, she ended up cutting off her nose to spite her face when the judge ruled against her entirely.
- He threatened to quit his well-paying job if his boss didn't give him the corner office, a clear case of cutting off his nose to spite his face when the company simply let him go.