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suicide

Pronunciation: /ˈs(j)uːɪˌsaɪd/

The English word “suicide” has 12 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The act of intentionally killing oneself.
  2. A particular instance of a person intentionally killing oneself, or of multiple people doing so.
  3. A person who has intentionally killed themself.
  4. An action that could cause the literal or figurative death of a person or organization, although death may not be the aim of the action.
  5. A beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.
  9. Pertaining to a suicide bombing.

verb

  1. To intentionally kill oneself.
  2. To kill (someone) and make their death appear to have been a suicide rather than a homicide (now especially as part of a conspiracy).
  3. To destroy or self-destruct.

Etymology

First attested in Thomas Browne's Religio Medici (1643) in noun sense 1, ostensibly from New Latin suīcīdium, from suī (genitive reflexive pronoun) + -cīdium (“act of killing or murder”), but often believed to have originated in English before entering Latin. Displaced native Middle English seolf-cwale from Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”), after which suicide may have been…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.