[ad. mod.L. suīcīda, f. suī of oneself + -cīda -CIDE 1. Cf. F. suicide, It., Sp., Pg. suicida.]
Not in Johnson, 1755. For earlier synonyms see SELF-DESTROYER, -KILLER, -MURDERER, -SLAYER.
One who dies by his own hand; one who commits self-murder. Also, one who attempts or has a tendency to commit suicide.
1732. Lond. Mag., I. 252. The Suicide owns himself … unequal to the Troubles of Life.
1769. Blackstone, Comm., IV. xiv. 189. The suicide is guilty of a double offence: one spiritual, in invading the prerogative of the Almighty…: the other temporal, against the king.
1838. W. Bell, Dict. Law Scot., 953. The wounds inflicted by a suicide himself are usually in the front, and in an oblique direction.
1861. Flor. Nightingale, Nursing (ed. 2), 77. A fourth [patient], who is a depressed suicide, requires a little cheering.
1870. R. C. Jebb, Sophocles’ Electra (ed. 2), 47/1. Suicides used to be interred with a stake through the body, ‘to lay the ghost.’
b. fig.
1728. Young, Love Fame (1741), 89. If fate forbears us, fancy strikes the blow We make misfortune, Suicides in woe.
1824–9. Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. 1853, I. 28/2. Those are the worst of suicides, who voluntarily and propensely stab or suffocate their fame.
c. attrib. or as adj. (= suicidal).
1817. Lady Morgan, France, I. (1878), I. 38. The chateau of the suicide husband.
1821. Bentham, Liberty Press, Wks. 1843, II. 282/1. The rash and ill-judged—the suicide letter of the constitution.
1895. F. M. Crawford, Casa Braccio, xl. The lonely grave of the outcast and suicide woman.
