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the intentional taking of one’s own life.
destruction of one’s own interests or prospects:
Buying that house was financial suicide.
a person who intentionally takes his or her own life.
to commit suicide.
to kill (oneself).
Contemporary Examples

The soldiers, suicide bombers, and heavy weapons parading through Sadr City last month—that was the launch of the Peace Brigades.
Baghdad’s Shia Militia Plans for War on ISIS Jacob Siegel July 15, 2014

During the bad episodes,” recalls a close friend, “Mary always talked about suicide.
New Questions Arise About Mary Richardson Kennedy’s Suicide Nancy Collins May 15, 2013

For Ankara to allow a suicide bomber through to launch a flagrant attack at this moment also would appear to be odd timing.
Did ISIS Attack Kobani from Turkey? Jamie Dettmer November 29, 2014

Two of the suicide notes were found in her room and another was discovered among her possessions.
Kate Middleton Suicide Nurse Slashed Wrists Then Hanged herself Tom Sykes December 12, 2012

“Every night, Rangers are going out on targets that are IED makers, suicide bombers,” says Lt. Col Brian de Santis.
Death Benefit Scandal Is the Government Shutdown’s Ultimate Insult Michael Daly October 9, 2013

Historical Examples

That he was hunted to suicide, I could, if necessary, establish by indisputable testimony.
The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 Various

One can only motive and explain this suicide by self-immolating love.
The Man Shakespeare Frank Harris

How can I evade its ghastly grip, how keep myself from suicide, from the desperate hankering after death?
Juliette Drouet’s Love-Letters to Victor Hugo Louis Guimbaud

In which case I fancy we may look for an attempt at suicide.
Henry Dunbar M. E. Braddon

And if here we chose to perish by suicide or natural death—and famine is a natural death—what eye would ever look on our bones?
Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 John Wilson

noun
the act or an instance of killing oneself intentionally
the self-inflicted ruin of one’s own prospects or interests: a merger would be financial suicide
a person who kills himself intentionally
(modifier) reckless; extremely dangerous: a suicide mission
(modifier) (of an action) undertaken or (of a person) undertaking an action in the knowledge that it will result in the death of the person performing it in order that maximum damage may be inflicted on an enemy: a suicide attack, suicide bomber
n.

“deliberate killing of oneself,” 1650s, from Modern Latin suicidium “suicide,” from Latin sui “of oneself” (genitive of se “self”), from PIE *s(u)w-o- “one’s own,” from root *s(w)e- (see idiom) + -cidium “a killing” (see -cide). Probably an English 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-Latin, the term for “one who commits suicide” was felo-de-se, literally “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. Suicide blonde first attested 1942. Baseball suicide squeeze is attested from 1955.

suicide su·i·cide (sōō’ĭ-sīd’)
n.

The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself.

One who commits suicide.