suicide

noun

1. (uncountable)The act of intentionally killing oneself.

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

   “The cowardice of suicide was abhorrent to him.”

   “I realize and I can see / That suicide is painless / It brings on many changes / And I can take or leave it if I please”

   “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. […]”

2. (countable)A 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.”

   “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'.”

   “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.”

3. (countable)A person who has intentionally killed themself.

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

   “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; […]”

   “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.”

4. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)An action that could cause the literal or figurative death of a person or organization, although death is not the aim of the action.

   “political suicide”

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

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

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

   “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.”

5. (US, countable, slang)A beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain.

   “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.”

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

6. (countable, uncountable)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. (countable)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.

   “The coach makes us run suicides at the end of each basketball practice.”

8. (countable, uncountable)A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.
9. (attributive, countable, uncountable)Pertaining to a suicide bombing.

   “suicide belt”

   “suicide vest”

verb

1. (intransitive)To intentionally kill oneself.

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

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

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

   “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."”

   “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.”

   “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.”

3. (ambitransitive, figuratively)To destroy or self-destruct.

   “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.”

   “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;”

   “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.”