Also 7 sui-cide. [ad. mod.L. suīcīdium, f. suī of oneself + -cīdium -CIDE 2. Cf. F. suicide, It., Sp., Pg. suicidio.]
For earlier synonyms see SELF-DESTRUCTION, -HOMICIDE, -KILLING, -MURDER, -SLAUGHTER.
The or an act of taking one’s own life, self-murder. Phr. to commit suicide.
1651. Charleton, Ephes. & Cimm. Matrons (1668), 73. To vindicatc ones self from … inevitable Calamity, by Sui-cide is not … a Crime.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Suicide, the slaying or murdering of himself; self-murder.
1732. Lond. Mag., I. 251. Love and Jealousy, the old unfashionable causes of Suicide.
1765–8. Erskine, Inst. Law Scot., IV. iv. § 46. Suicide, which is a species of murder, ought to be governed by the common rules of murder.
1781. Cowper, Truth, 20. Charge not … Your wilful suicide on God’s decree.
1817. W. Selwyn, Law Nisi Prius (ed. 4), II. 970. A proviso … declaring the policy to be void in case the insured should … commit suicide.
1891. Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, lxvi. The terrible disillusionment and suicides of Gallio and of Seneca.
b. fig.
1793. V. Knox, Pers. Nobility, liv. Wks. 1824, V. 125. There should be no war, much less intestine war, which may be justly called political suicide.
1817. D’Israeli, Curios. Lit., III. 189. Men of genius … voluntarily committing a literary suicide in their own manuscripts.
1884. trans. Lotze’s Logic, 468. The rejection of it [sc. a theory] could only be arrived at by a very curious sort of logical suicide.
1886. Ruskin, Præterita, I. 389. The central tragedy of all the world, the suicide of Greece.
c. attrib.
1773. Foote, Bankrupt, III. Wks. 1799, II. 129. November, the suicide season.
1882. Stevenson, New Arab. Nts., 26. The smoking-room of the Suicide Club.
1909. Westm. Gaz., 28 Aug., 15/2. The suicide rate per 100,000 persons under twenty … was 8·26.
