self-deathn.

1583 A. Marten tr. P. M. Vermigli Common Places ii. ix. 395 Whether selfe-death may be lawfull [L. an..liceat se occidere] for keeping of chastitie.

1597 W. Warner Albions Eng. (new ed.) xi. lxvii. 286 This was indeed a wonder, for this Virgin so was bent To Chastitie, that by selfe-death, she Marrage did preuent.

1631 D. Lloyd Legend Capt. Iones 12 Brutus, I am a Brute, and have thy spirit, Thy fortune and selfe-death I will inherit.

1662 Duchess of Newcastle Religious iv. xxxv, in Playes Written 553 Father, know I accounted self Death no wickedness, and I will venture on my own belief.

1870 Frank Leslie's Illustr. Newspaper 16 July 10/2 Self-death cannot be so foul in the eyes of the Maker, as the pollution of the mind and form he has shapen after his own image.

1894 F. G. Scott My Lattice & Other Poems 55 The utmost deed that life can task, A soul by self-death given to win Another's soul from sin.

1999 J. Berman Surviving Literary Suicide 1 The contagion effect—suicide's ability to ‘infect’ other people, rendering them susceptible to self-death.

2012 Hindustan Times (Nexis) 11 June The slowness of a hunger death..makes it strangely dramatic in a world used to ‘quicker’ forms of self-death such as suicide-bombing or even self-immolation.