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to commit suicide

to commit suicide

232 6.2
To kill yourself on purpose
  • phrasal verb
  • /kəˈmɪt ˈsuːɪˌsaɪd/
  • NSFW
translation icon : suicidarse
  • Many people suffering from depression have tragically chosen to commit suicide.
  • try to commit suicide
  • likely to commit suicide
  • father committed suicide

But when his son committed suicide, what did he do?

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Examples

  • She tried to commit suicide three times.

  • My little brother was one of eight Navajo boys that committed suicide that summer in my area.

  • But when his son committed suicide, what did he do?

  • Our friend just committed suicide.

  • I was supposed to meet her outside, but I got caught up watching this news report about some kid that committed suicide.

  • A young man wanted to commit suicide because law school was so hard.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • And sadly he committed suicide two years after that.

  • People with intention to commit suicide will not get married, right?

  • Do you know how many kids in my high school committed suicide 'cause they didn't know what they wanted to do?

  • And look, people don't just commit suicide when things are bad.

Synonyms

to take one's own life
vsto commit suicide
  • NSFW
35 8.6

To end your life on purpose

is identical in meaning but uses more direct, blunt wording
to end one's life
vsto commit suicide
  • NSFW
1 8.7

To kill yourself because you feel you cannot go on

is the same meaning but expresses it with more clinical directness

Antonyms

1.0

To continue to be alive

2.7

Continue to exist after a dangerous or difficult event

Surface Forms

commit suicide infinitive
committed suicide past participle
committing suicide present participle
commits suicide third person singular

Morphology

commit + suicide

Both constituents directly contribute to the meaning: 'suicide' names the deliberate act of causing one's own death and 'commit' means to carry out an act, so 'commit suicide' straightforwardly means to carry out suicide (intentionally kill oneself). This composition is cross-linguistically common (e.g., Spanish 'cometer suicidio' / reflexive forms) and follows predictable English patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the words will understand it.

Etymology

Commit suicide comes from a time when people used the verb commit for crimes. Because suicide used to be treated as a crime, people talked about 'committing' it the same way they spoke about 'committing a crime'. So today commit suicide still means 'to kill oneself on purpose'.