The story
- Old English · inherited fromselfmyrþere“one who kills himself, a suicide”
- Middle English · inherited from*self-murther
- English todayself-murder
From self- + murder, perhaps continuing Middle English *self-murther, from Old English selfmyrþere (“one who kills himself, a suicide”). Compare German Selbstmord, Dutch zelfmoord, Swedish självmord.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.