Meaning & use
self-surrender
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Meanings
noununcountableformalliterary
The act of giving up control of your life or will to a higher power, cause, or another person.
Grammar: Uncountable: an act of self-surrender, not 'a self-surrender'. It can be used with 'total' or 'complete'.
Patterns
- self-surrender to something
- an act of self-surrender
- total self-surrender
The monk described his spiritual journey as a gradual self-surrender to God.
Her poetry is full of longing and self-surrender, as if she has given up trying to control everything.
For the soldiers, self-surrender to the cause meant putting the group before their own survival.
noununcountableformalliterary
The act of allowing yourself to be completely controlled by a feeling or desire.
Grammar: Used in literary or psychological descriptions, often with 'complete' or 'total': complete self-surrender to grief.
Patterns
- self-surrender to something
- complete self-surrender
His self-surrender to grief left him unable to work for months.
The novel shows a dangerous self-surrender to romantic obsession.
Common combinations
- total self-surrender
- The mystics wrote about total self-surrender as the final step toward union with the divine.
- an act of self-surrender
- Bowing before the altar was, for her, an act of self-surrender.
- self-surrender to God
- The hymn expresses self-surrender to God in simple, repeated lines.
- self-surrender to a cause
- His self-surrender to the revolution cost him his family.
Synonyms and how they differ
- submission
- Submission is more general and can be forced; self-surrender suggests a voluntary, often spiritual giving up of yourself.
- capitulation
- Capitulation is used mainly in military or political contexts and means stopping resistance; self-surrender is personal and inner.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: self-surrender or self-sacrifice?
self-surrender vs self-sacrifice
Self-sacrifice means giving up something valuable for others; self-surrender means giving up control of yourself, often to a higher power.
Practice
In many mystical traditions, ______ is seen not as weakness but as the highest form of devotion.
Choose one answer.
Self-surrender fits because the sentence is about giving up your own will in a spiritual sense. 'Self-sacrifice' is about giving up things for others, and 'surrender' alone usually refers to stopping a fight.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “self-surrender”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.