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I don't remember ever seeing suicide used as a standalone verb. I've always seen it as commits suicide or committed suicide.

Can you conjugate and use suicide by itself?

Mitch
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Homer
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4 Answers4

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The OED has citations for the verb suicide meaning ‘to commit suicide’ from 1841 to 1898, and there are citations in the sense ‘to do to death’ from 1876 to 1900. There are two twentieth century citations for the derived adjective suicided.

Oxford Dictionaries Online has an entry for the verb and gives as an example of it use ‘she suicided herself in a very ugly manner’.

Barrie England
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  • On the other side of the pond, COHA has five cites for suicided from 1899 to 1976, while COCA has eight more from 1991 to 2010. COHA also has three cites for suiciding, all from the same 1952 source. – RegDwigнt Jul 12 '12 at 14:58
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Yes, as M-W states:

suicide

verb sui·cid·ed | sui·cid·ing

intransitive verb : to commit suicide

  • Sarah suicided on the bleakest of Washington winter mornings.
3

According to Dictionary.com, suicide is also a verb:

suicide

verb (used without object)

to commit suicide, to kill (oneself).

1

Sure. My favorite verb conjugation for the word is, "so and so was suicided"

A murder made to look like a suicide.

jpguest
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  • Can you provide any source for this? I've never seen suicide used in this way for this purpose. – Doc Jan 22 '14 at 20:40