self-murder
Americannoun
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self-murders
plural
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the act of ending one's own life; suicide (sometimes used in historical contexts).
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any action that is highly destructive to oneself or one's ambitions.
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But why were people prosecuted for attempted "self-murder" and how did things change?
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2011
Here, too, we are freed, at the commencement, from all supposition of self-murder.
From The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Nathaniel Parker Willis
Toleration, in that instance, would have been self-murder, and many other examples might be alleged, in which their necessary measures of self-defense have been exaggerated into cruelty, and their most indispensable precautions distorted into persecution.
From The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) by Various
Kongti, a devoted Buddhist, declined the fatal draught, on the ground that self-murder was in opposition to his religious sentiments.
From Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) The Romance of Reality by Charles Morris
The lieutenant, having surveyed the dismal appearance of his friend, could not help being moved at the spectacle, and began to upbraid him with his obstinate pride, which, he swore, was no better than self-murder.
From The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by T. (Tobias) Smollett
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
