suicide
/ˈs(j)uːɪˌsaɪd/
"suicide" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“suicide” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,409 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,409
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of intentionally killing oneself.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | suicide |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈs(j)uːɪˌsaɪd/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #2,409 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “suicide” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for suicide is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈs(j)uːɪˌsaɪd/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,409 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for suicide, with forms such as "siucide", "ssuicide", and "suciide". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "sulfide", "subside", "suicidal", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested in Thomas Browne's Religio Medici (1643) in noun sense 1, ostensibly from New Latin suīcīdium, from suī (genitive reflexive pronoun) + -cīdium (“act of killing or murder”), but often believed to have originated in English before entering Lati… The correct English form is suicide, spelled S-U-I-C-I-D-E.
Definition
- 1The act of intentionally killing oneself.
- 2A particular instance of a person intentionally killing oneself, or of multiple people doing so.
- 3A person who has intentionally killed themself.
- 4An action that could cause the literal or figurative death of a person or organization, although death is not the aim of the action.
- 5A beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain.
- 6A diabolo trick where one of the sticks is released and allowed to rotate 360° round the diabolo until it is caught by the hand that released it.
- 7A run comprising a series of sprints of increasing lengths, each followed immediately by a return to the start, with no pause between one sprint and the next.
- 8A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.
- 9Pertaining to a suicide bombing.
Etymology
First attested in Thomas Browne's Religio Medici (1643) in noun sense 1, ostensibly from New Latin suīcīdium, from suī (genitive reflexive pronoun) + -cīdium (“act of killing or murder”), but often believed to have originated in English before entering Latin. Displaced native Middle English seolf-cwale from Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”), after which suicide may have been modelled, or calqued (compare manuscript). Noun sense 3 is perhaps by analogy with words like homicide, patricide (see -cide), or, although unlikely, from Medieval Latin suīcīda; see the Etymology section at suīcīdium.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: siucide,ssuicide,suciide,suiccide,suicdie,suicidde,suicied,suiicde,usicide
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of suicide - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “suicide”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-U-I-C-I-D-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈs(j)uːɪˌsaɪd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sulfide” - see the side-by-side comparison. suicide vs sulfide
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.