suicide
Pluralsuicides (some meanings)
Pluralsuicides (some meanings)
Formssuicides, suiciding, suicided
- 1The act of choosing to end your own life, or one case of someone doing this.
A crisis hotline can help someone who is thinking about suicide.
Suicide is a leading cause of death among young adults.
UsageSay thinking about suicide, with no a before it.
Note
- 2Relating to an attack where the attacker also dies on purpose.
The suicide bomber struck during the morning rush hour.
Police stopped a planned suicide attack near the train station.
UsageUse it before a noun: suicide attack.
- 3Something you do that could destroy you or your group, even if that is not what you meant to happen.
Like sawing off the branch you are sitting on.
Lying to your closest friend can be social suicide.
Spending all your savings on one bet is financial suicide.
UsageSay political suicide or it's suicide to do something.
Note
Less common meanings
- 4A person who has killed themselves on purpose.
The suicide left a short note for his family.
Families of suicides often carry their grief for years.
- 5To kill someone and make it look like they killed themselves.
Some people believe the gang suicided the only witness.
His friends feared the people he exposed would suicide him.
UsagePeople say was suicided to claim a death was really murder.
Note
- 6A running drill where you sprint to farther and farther lines, returning each time without a break.
The coach made the team run suicides after every practice.
I was so tired after the last suicide that I lay down on the court.
UsageSay run suicides.
- 7A drink made by mixing every soda flavor together at the fountain.
He mixed a suicide using every nozzle on the soda machine.
As kids we always ordered suicides at the movie theater.
Note
- 8A children's game where you throw a ball at a wall and at other players to get them out.
At recess we played suicide against the brick wall.
He got hit early and was out of the game of suicide.
- 9To kill yourself on purpose.
"Her husband suicided three years ago. Just like a man!"
1917, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams - 10To destroy itself or bring about its own ruin.
Here in America we just called them survivors, after the Chinese suicided their psychotic society in the seventies, and destroyed most of urban America in the process.
2010, Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse - 11A diabolo trick where you let go of one stick and let it spin all the way around before catching it.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
First used in English in 1643, probably from New Latin suicidium, made from Latin sui ('of oneself') plus -cidium ('act of killing'). It replaced an older English word meaning 'self-slaughter'.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The earliest recorded English use dates to 1643. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Suicidium combines Latin sui and -cidium. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin sui means 'of oneself'. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin -cidium denotes an act of killing. en.wiktionary.org
- Suicide displaced an older English word literally meaning 'self-slaughter'. en.wiktionary.org