suicide
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Intentionally killing oneself.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
soouhsydSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsuəsaɪd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
The act of intentionally killing oneself.
countable
A particular instance of a person intentionally killing oneself, or of multiple people doing so.
A person who kills himself intentionally
The act of killing yourself
“It is a crime to commit suicide.”
figuratively
An action that could cause the literal or figurative death of a person or organization, although death is not the aim of the action.
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.
verb
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).
intransitive
To intentionally kill oneself.
To self-destruct.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act of intentionally killing oneself.
Used this way, suicide is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use suicide
- “It is a crime to commit suicide.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A terrorist who blows himself up in order to kill or injure other people.
A terrorist bombing carried out by someone who does not hope to survive it.
Killing or injuring others while annihilating yourself.
An agreement by two or more people to commit suicide together at a given place and time.
A poison pill with potentially catastrophic implications for the company it is intended to protect.
The runner on third base starts home as the pitcher delivers the ball.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.