selficide

S1E1L1F4I1C3I1D2E1

noun

Accidental death that occurs while trying to take a selfie in a dangerous environment.

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Scrabble 15

Meanings

selficide1

nounselficide (countable and uncountable, plural selficides)

plural selficides

  1. countableinformaluncountableAccidental death that occurs while trying to take a selfie in a dangerous environment.

    (see title)

    2020, Tasawar Hannan, “Facebook 'Selficide': Are They Modern-Day Tragic Attempts of Our Symbolic Capital?”, in European Journal of Sociology, volume 3, number 1
    5 more examples

    Drowning, being hit by a vehicle[, and] suffering a fall [are] the most common causes of ‘selficide’.

    2018 September 28, Jasper Hamill, “Scientists call for ‘no selfie’ zones to stop narcissists dying in ‘selficides’”, in Metro

    A recent study documented 259 deaths worldwide caused by people taking selfies – dubbed “selficides” by the researchers – between October 2011 and November 2017.

    2018 November 3, Erin McCormick, Michael Safi, “'Is our life just worth a photo?': the tragic death of a couple in Yosemite”, in The Guardian

    Selficides were already in the news last weekend, when it was revealed that an Indian couple who fell to their death at Yosemite National Park had alcohol in their system.

    2019 January 23, Paula Froelich, “Selficide: The Dangerous New Addiction”, in Newsweek

    This situation is becoming increasingly common, even coining the new term selficide where people die in pursuit of extreme selfies, and is not something any crisis playbook of the past would anticipate

    2020, Ronald D. Smith, Strategic Planning for Public Relations, page 198

    According to an article published in Economic times named 'Global addiction: Selfie's facts and moments from around the world.' (economictimes) States that millennia‟s age 18-34, 82% of them are selfie takers (2018 fact), 259 selficide ie deaths caused while taking Selfie‟s (Bureau, 2019) reported by All India institute of medical sciences in the year 2011-2017, half of which were reported from India followed by Russia, United States and Pakistan.

    2021 June, C. P. Rashmi, Ritu S. Sood, “Selfie Creating Dual Personalities: A Study of Selfie, Narcissism and Social Media”, in Journal of Content, Community & Communication, volume 13

    Synonyms: killfie

selficide2

nounselficide (countable and uncountable, plural selficides)

plural selficides

  1. countableuncountableThe metaphorical killing of the self.

    On one level, selficide is the failure to learn and grow from life's experiences.

    2014, Ken Chapman, The Leader’s Code, page 17
    3 more examples

    Even Dostoevsky's supposedly Christlike character Prince Myshkin ends in a suicide, or more literally, "selficide," […]

    1974, Maurice S. Friedman, The Hidden Human Image

    This "rigor mortis" is selficide. The person literally "lives out" his life, with little difference in his experience when he is five, sixteen, forty, or seventy years old. Self never emerges.

    1992, Thomas Patrick Malone, The Windows of Experience: Moving Beyond Recovery to Wholeness

    In a way, to upgrade Gil's (2009) arguments, a palpable 'selficide' is systematically produced by blocking 'truth' from itself and from the very own self, a self that can only exist 'in inner violence.'

    2020, João M. Paraskeva, Curriculum and the Generation of Utopia

Synonyms & antonyms

nounAccidental death that occurs while trying to take a selfie in a dangerous environment.

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Origin

Translations

German Selfizid
  • Selfiziddeath by selfie
Greek σελφοκτονία
  • σελφοκτονία (selfoktonía)death by selfie
Cite this entry
APA

selficide. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/selficide

MLA

“selficide.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/selficide. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “selficide,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/selficide.

Source: selficide on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.