"deliberate killing of oneself," 1651, from Mod.L.
suicidium "suicide," from L.
sui "of oneself" (gen. of
se "self"), from PIE
*s(u)w-o- "one's own," from base
*s(w)e- (see
idiom) +
-cidium "a killing." Probably an Eng. coinage; much maligned by Latin purists because it "may as well seem to participate of
sus, a sow, as of the pronoun
sui" [Phillips]. The meaning "person who kills himself deliberately" is from 1728. In Anglo-L., the term for "one who commits suicide" was
felo-de-se, lit. "one guilty concerning himself."
"November, the suicide season." [Samuel Foote, "The Bankrupt," 1773]
In England, suicides were legally criminal if sane, but not if judged to have been mentally deranged. The criminal ones were given degrading burial in roadways until 1823.
Suicidal is from 1777.
Suicide blonde first attested 1942. Baseball
suicide squeeze is attested from 1955.
[soo-uh-sahyd] 
noun, verb, -cid⋅ed, -cid⋅ing.
