suicide

plural suicides

1. uncountableThe act of intentionally killing oneself.

   Would sir care to commit suicide?

   1999 September 12, Anthony Horowitz et al., “Dead Man's Eleven”, in Midsomer Murders

   4 more examples

   As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

   1838 January 27, Abraham Lincoln, The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions

   The cowardice of suicide was abhorrent to him.

   1904, Harold MacGrath, chapter 22, in The Man On The Box

   Bob also said the song had to be called Suicide Is Painless. "Since [Capt.] Painless commits suicide with a pill, that would be a good title," he said. Then he said, "It's got to be the stupidest song ever written." ... So Michael Altman, at age 15, wrote the lyrics, and then I wrote the music to them.

   2008 October 24, Johnny Mandel & al., "Interview", JazzWax

   Other global taboos, such as sex and suicide, manifest themselves widely online, with websites offering suicide guides and Hot XXX Action seconds away at the click of a button. […]

   2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in the Guardian

2. countableA particular instance of a person intentionally killing oneself, or of multiple people doing so.

   There had been half a dozen mysterious suicides which had been investigated by Scotland Yard.

   1919, Edgar Wallace, chapter 14, in The Secret House

   2 more examples

   In this way the Heaven's Gate community were not only escaping the threat of 'global destruction', they were hurling themselves directly into 'the lap of God', using their suicide as a way of 'bridging the chasm' between an earthly world which had no future and 'a thousand years of unmitigated peace'.

   1999, Philip H. Melling, Fundamentalism in America: Millennialism, Identity and Militant Religion, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 192

   Prosser's focus on mental health in particular also led him to the (sometimes) life-threatening ways this can affect all of us, whether we work on the railway or not. In 2020-21, there were 247 suicides or suspected suicides on the national network - that's one every 35 hours.

   2023 November 15, Ian Prosser talks to Stefanie Foster, “A healthy person is a more productive person”, in RAIL, number 996, page 36

3. countableA person who has intentionally killed themself.

   "I remember one suicide," she said to Philip, "who threw himself into the Thames."

   1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 95, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Poets have been ill-fated in Russia ever since the Revolution: Vladimir Mayakovsky and Sergei Esenin, among the two great poets of the Revolutionary era, were suicides; […]

   1980 December 21, James Atlas, “A Poetic Triumph”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Nov 2025

   Early in the film two boys are caught having sex […] and this exposure leads to suicide and much conversation. "It wasn't even with a man from this house," remarks one of the suicide's house fellows, and an off-camera matron immediately folds the dead lad's mattress.

   1984 August 18, Walta Borawski, “Another Country (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 6, page 13

   Synonyms: an hero, autocide, self-killer, self-murderer, self-slayer, suicidee, suicider, suicidist

4. countablefigurativelyuncountableAn 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

   5 more examples

   […] I do not want the Congress or the country to commit fiscal suicide on the installment plan.

   1959 February 9, Everett Dirksen, Congressional Record, archived from the original on 16 Jan 2009, page 2100

   "Mr. Glinn," said Britton, "it's suicide to take a huge ship like this past the Ice Limit. Especially in this weather."

   2000, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, The Ice Limit, →ISBN

   […] it's suicide to change jobs in mid-career.

   2004, Robert D. Lock, Job Search: Career Planning Guide, →ISBN, page 24

   Miranda: No good. Both routes are blocked. See these doors? The only way past is to get someone to open them from the other side. / Shepard: It's not a fortress; there's got to be something. Here, maybe we can send someone in through this ventilation shaft. / Jacob: Practically a suicide mission. I volunteer. / Miranda: I appreciate the thought, Jacob, but you couldn't shut down the security systems in time. We need to send a tech expert.

   2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2

   Italian communism and those on its left had committed political suicide.

   2013 August 21, Tariq Ali, “A suicide note to Trotsky that displayed political passions we should not forget”, in The Guardian

5. UScountableslangA beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain.

   Using Coca-Cola as a base, a suicide called for the addition of every other flavor available.

   2000, Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country and Coca-Cola, Basic Books, →ISBN, page 15

   1 more example

   You could sit at a corner and order your Suicide, and one of two twin brothers who worked there would hold an old-fashioned soda glass, a heavy tall V-shaped one with a round foot at the bottom, and go down the line with one shot of everything—cherry, lemon, Coke, and chocolate syrups—before adding soda water.

   1994, Christopher Buckley, Cruising State: Growing Up in Southern California, University of Nevada Press, →ISBN, page 34

   Synonyms: graveyard, swamp water

6. countableuncountableA 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.
7. countableA 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.

8. countableuncountableA children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.
9. attributivecountableuncountablePertaining to a suicide bombing.

   suicide belt

   1 more example

   suicide vest

present singular third person suicides · participle present suiciding · participle past suicided · past suicided

1. intransitiveTo intentionally kill oneself.

   "Her husband suicided three years ago. Just like a man!"

   1917, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 11, in Anne's House of Dreams

   1 more example

   Seems a lady poet suicided at Verringer's ranch in Sepulveda canyon one time.

   1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin, published 2010, page 136

   Synonyms: an hero, catch the bus, commit hara-kiri, commit seppuku, commit sudoku, end one's life, kill oneself, off oneself

2. transitiveTo kill (someone) and make their death appear to have been a suicide rather than a homicide (now especially as part of a conspiracy).

   Even if he did get charged, he would be suicided long before he could involve one of the city's most important politicians in the scam.

   2011, Tobias Jones, White Death, →ISBN, page 273

   2 more examples

   Have bought The Shanghai Chopsticks. Proprietor at first refused to sell, but when I ordered the boiling oil he became more reasonable. Editor reports that circulation is not what it ought to be. […] Will publish proclaimation, "Any person found not in possession of The Shanghai Chopsticks (current number) will be suicided."

   1898 October 29, Punch, or the London charivari, page 196

   Gelli also expressed skepticism about Calvi's ability to climb out over the scaffolding in his leather-soled city shoes. 'I think they suicided him.

   2013 September 23, Philip Willan, The Vatican at War: From Blackfriars Bridge to Buenos Aires, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 257

3. ambitransitivefigurativelyTo destroy or self-destruct.

   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, →ISBN, page 189

   2 more examples

   At the conclusion of each wind, the movement of the driver's control lever back to the neutral position, and consequently the movement of the Ward Leonard controller back to its neutral position, firstly opens the directional contacts which isolate the generator field from the Ward Leonard exciter and, secondly, operates contactors which eliminate the effect of the residual field by suiciding the generator field as outlined above.

   1957, The Institute of Mineral Industries, Proceedings - Issues 181-182, page 315

   The problem is that the degradation of our common space requires a complete social transformation, because it's a part of Galician society's general degradation, a society demographically declining — demographically suiciding, as it were — with inactive employers and intellectual elites comfortably disconnected from real life;

   2006, Ugliness?: Destroying a Country, →ISBN