suicide (English)

Where does "suicide" come from?

The English noun 'suicide' was first attested in 1643 in Thomas Browne's Religio Medici[1]. It was ostensibly formed from New Latin 'suīcīdium', which combined the Latin genitive reflexive pronoun 'suī' (from the Proto-Indo-European stem '*swé'[2][3]) with the suffix '-cīdium' meaning 'act of killing or murder'[1][4]. However, the word may have actually originated in English before entering Latin, functioning as a modeled translation or calque of the native Middle English 'seolf-cwale' and Old English 'selfcwalu' meaning 'self-slaughter'[1]. It eventually displaced those older terms[1].

Open questions

• The exact direction of borrowing and creation between English suicide and New Latin suicidium remains debated, with suggestions that the term may have originated in English before entering Latin. [1] [4]

Full etymology tree

• suicide (English), 'The act of intentionally killing oneself.'
  • borrowed suicidium (Latin), 'suicide'
    • compound sui (Latin), 'the genitive of the reflexive pronoun meaning of himself, of herself, of itself, of themselves, one another, each other, etc.'
      • inherited *swé (Proto-Indo-European), 'self (reflexive pronoun)'
    • compound -cidium (Latin), 'Denotes an act of killing or a slaughter'
  • calque seolf-cwale (Middle English)
    • inherited selfcwalu (Old English), 'suicide'

Ancestors

• sui (Latin)
• -cidium (Latin)

Descendants and derived words

• antisuicide (English)
• assisted suicide (English)
• bullycide (English)
• career suicide (English)
• commit suicide (English)
• cybersuicide (English)
• desuicide (English)
• double suicide (English)
• double-suicide (English)
• infinite suicide (English)
• mass suicide (English)
• medicide (English)

Sources

1. suicide (English) - Wiktionary
2. sui (Latin) - Wiktionary
3. swé (Proto-Indo-European) - Wiktionary
4. suicidium (Latin) - Wiktionary

Updated September 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris