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suicidal

suicidal

56 7.4
Very dangerous and likely to cause serious harm or ruin
  • adjective
  • /ˌsuːɪˈsaɪdəl/
  • NSFW
: suicida
  • All solutions involve raising taxes, a gesture considered suicidal in an election year.
  • politically suicidal

That is a, in my view, suicidal policy.

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Examples

  • A military officer sent Constantine on a suicidal mission.

  • You barge in here unarmed when it is clearly suicidal to do so.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • Anybody who drives in this town is suicidal.

  • It's a suicidal mission.

  • Eddie makes a rapid, suicidal dive right down toward the pavement below.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • Model 1 included social isolation as the single independent predictor variable for suicidal behaviors.

    Academic text (2007)
  • Preempting nuclear forces is suicidal unless such an attack can reduce an adversary's nuclear arsenal to zero.

    Academic text (1995)
  • Most psychological approaches to suicide terrorism focus on the suicidal component and ignore terrorism and Islamism.

    Academic text (2015)
  • Worst of all, if the pyrotechnics that control the parachutes have been damaged, the chutes may not open at all, causing the spacecraft to hit the water not at a gentle 20 miles per hour, but at a suicidal 300.

  • Taking that risky shortcut through the dark alley was a suicidal choice that could have ended badly.

Synonyms

self-destructive
vssuicidal
41 6.3

Tending to cause harm to the person who does it or to their life

is more extreme, likely to cause serious harm or ruin

Antonyms

∞ 1.0

Not likely to be harmed or in danger

How Dangerous

suicidal
  • NSFW
56 7.4
reckless
193 3.6
dangerous
∞ 1.5
risky
269 3.6

Surface Forms

suicidal positive

Morphology

suicidal = suicide (semi-transparent) = suicide + al

The adjective is built transparently from 'suicide' plus '-al', but this sense extends metaphorically to self-destructive actions or plans.

Etymology

Suicidal comes from Latin parts sui meaning 'of oneself' and -cide meaning 'to kill'. So calling a choice 'suicidal' gives the image of an action that would 'kill' your own chances or safety, and so it describes something very likely to cause serious harm or ruin.