suicide
B1Meanings
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1
noun
the act of killing yourself
it is a crime to commit suicide
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2
noun
The act of intentionally killing oneself.
As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
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3
noun
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.
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4
noun
A person who has intentionally killed themself.
"I remember one suicide," she said to Philip, "who threw himself into the Thames."
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5
noun
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
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6
noun
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.
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7
noun
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.
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8
noun
Pertaining to a suicide bombing.
suicide belt
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 modelled, or calqued (compare manuscript). Noun sense 3 is perhaps by analogy with words like homicide, patricide (see -cide), or, although unlikely, from Medieval Latin suīcīda; see the Etymology section…