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word choice - Can one conjugate and use 'suicide' as a verb?



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?



Answer



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’.


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