Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself.
  • noun The destruction or ruin of one's own interests.
  • noun One who commits suicide.
  • intransitive verb To kill oneself; commit suicide.
  • adjective Relating to, involving, or resulting in one's voluntary death.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who commits suicide; at common law, one who, being of the years of discretion and of sound mind, destroys himself.
  • noun The act of designedly destroying one's own life.
  • noun Figuratively, destruction of one's own interests or aims.
  • To be guilty of suicide.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • 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.
  • noun Ruin of one's own interests.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable Intentional killing of oneself, as a kind of action or social phenomenon.
  • noun countable A particular instance of a person intentionally killing himself or herself, or of multiple people doing so.
  • noun countable A person who has intentionally killed him/herself.
  • noun figuratively An action which could have the literal or figurative death of a person or organization as its consequence, although death is not the aim of the action.
  • noun countable 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.
  • verb intransitive To kill oneself intentionally.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person who kills himself intentionally
  • noun the act of killing yourself

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin suī, of oneself; see s(w)e- in Indo-European roots + –cide.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1651, New Latin coinage (probably originating in English) suīcīda, suīcīdium, from Latin suī (from suus ("one’s own")) + Latin -cīda ("one who kills"). Compare self-slaughter, self-blood.

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Examples

Comments

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  • “Razors pain you; rivers are damp; acids stain you; and drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful; you might as well live.�?

    --Dorothy Parker

    July 2, 2007

  • From a suicide note: 'Action cures fear, they taught me. To overcome your fear do the thing that you are afraid of. I was afraid of dying'.

    March 3, 2008

  • That reminds me of an HP Lovecraft story in which the protagonist, having acquired the ability to peer into the future, sees himself lying helplessly in a vegetative state. To prevent this from happening, he decides to take his life by shooting himself in the head. The attempt is not successful, though--his wounds put him into a vegetative state...

    March 3, 2008

  • Yeah. I guess if you're that afraid of dying, then dying might cure that fear. And everything else you'll ever experience.

    March 3, 2008

  • A logical conclusion to an illogical life.

    July 31, 2008

  • Not funny. Not clever either.

    July 31, 2008

  • I'm no romanticizer of suicide... however, The Sorrows of Young Werther is one of my all-time favorite books. I can no longer think or hear of suicide without young beloved Werther coming to mind.

    July 31, 2008

  • Not insightful, not necessary either.

    July 31, 2008

  • "The Army recorded it highest ever number of suicides last year, with 115 soldiers killing themselves, Reuters reports. The rate is staying high this year, with 38 soldier suicides so far. The military said the statistics showed no direct link between the increase in suicides and repeated deployments to combat zones—but admitted the stresses of war were taking their toll."

    - 'Soldier Suicides Set Record', newser.com, 30 May 2008.

    September 30, 2008

  • "Hey, guys! Guess what? Keep on reading! How are you? I hope you are fine. I am not fine - as you can no doubt tell from me hanging here from the ceiling fixture. You are the ones who drove me to this. I was doing just fine until you fuckers came along. I hope you're happy now that I'm goddamn dead. Signed, The Corpse in This Room. P.S: Fuck you people!"

    - George Carlin in Life is worth losing, explaining how a suicide note should be.

    March 19, 2009

  • True (morbid) story: My husband's classmate senior year committed suicide by hanging himself. His note simply read "Got rope?"

    March 19, 2009

  • Horrible as it may be, atleast the guy had a good sense of humour.

    March 19, 2009

  • Yeah, leave 'em laughin', right? I guess you could say he did Carlin proud. Perhaps Life is Worth Losing was the kid's inspiration...

    March 19, 2009

  • We`ll never know.

    March 19, 2009

  • Sui refers to one's own self in Latin and ' Cide' refers to killing.

    Sui+Cide = Matricide = Killing oneself.

    October 22, 2013

  • I was at a local coffee shop's self-service station this morning--trying to decide whether to get dark roast, medium roast, or the flavor of the day. I hate having to choose, so I just got a bit of each. The person behind me in line said, "Wait. Is that like a suicide, but with coffee?" I laughed and said, "Yes!"

    I don't remember when I first heard "suicide" as the term for combining all the soda pop options from a fountain machine--it's common enough. But it still kinda weirds me out.

    November 29, 2018