suicide machine

[ soo-uh-sahyd muh--sheen ]

noun

1. a device designed to permit a terminally ill person to end their own life, as by the automatic injection of a lethal drug.

Word History and Origins

Origin of suicide machine¹

First recorded in 1985–90

Example Sentences

"Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up," the anthropologist Ronald Wright warns, calling industrial society "a suicide machine."

From Salon

This museum even has the infamous Thanatron, Jack Kevorkian’s suicide machine, with a name that means “instrument of death” in Greek.

From Washington Post

Euthanasia expert invents 'suicide machine'

From Washington Post

It may be a fraud, a suicide machine.

From New York Times

Tinguely had recently shocked the art world with a piece at the Museum of Modern Art called “Homage to New York,” a giant “suicide machine” that he had engineered to slowly self-destruct, ultimately bursting into flames.

From The New Yorker