suicide
UK /ˈs(j)uːɪˌsaɪd/ · US /ˈsuɪˌsaɪd/ noun, verb
Forms suicides suiciding suicided
- noun (uncountable) The act of intentionally killing oneself.
- noun (countable) A particular instance of a person intentionally killing oneself, or of multiple people doing so.
- noun (countable) A person who has intentionally killed themself.
- noun (figurative) An action that could cause the literal or figurative death of a person or organization, although death may not be the aim of the action. “political suicide”
- noun (countable, US, slang) A beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain.
- noun A diabolo trick where one of the sticks is released and allowed to rotate 360° round the diabolo until it is caught by the hand that released it.
- noun (countable) A run comprising a series of sprints of increasing lengths, each followed immediately by a return to the start, with no pause between one sprint and the next. “The coach makes us run suicides at the end of each basketball practice.”
- noun A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.
- verb (intransitive) To intentionally kill oneself.
- verb (transitive) To kill (someone) and make their death appear to have been a suicide rather than a homicide (now especially as part of a conspiracy).
- verb (ambitransitive, figurative) To destroy or self-destruct.
Synonyms
an hero autocide self-killer self-murderer self-slayer suicidee suicider suicidist graveyard swamp water autohomicide self-blood self-deletion self-killing self-murder self-slaughter self-slaying sewer slide sillycide suicism self-destruction self-annihilation felo-de-se
Etymology
First attested in Thomas Browne's Religio Medici (1643) in noun sense 1, ostensibly from New Latin suīcīdium, from suī (genitive reflexive pronoun) + -cīdium (“act of killing or murder”), but often believed to have originated in English before entering Latin. Displaced native Middle English seolf-cwale from Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”), after which suicide may have been modelled, or calqued (compare manuscript). Noun sense 3 is perhaps by analogy with words like homicide, patricide (see -cide), or, although unlikely, from Medieval Latin suīcīda; see the Etymology section at suīcīdium.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The act of taking one's own life voluntary and intentionally; self-murder; specifically (Law), the felonious killing of one's self; the deliberate and intentional destruction of one's own life by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind.
- noun One guilty of self-murder; a felo-de-se.
Etymology [L. sui of one's self (akin to suus one's own) + caedere to slay, to kill. Cf. So, adv., Homicide.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “suicide”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details