Copicide

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A method of suicide in which a person deliberately behaves in a threatening manner to provoke a police officer into shooting him or her. informal

    "Carrie told a police negotiator she didn't have the nerve to shoot herself. Later, she'd tell psychiatrist Gwen Levitt she was hoping to commit what the police call "copicide," in which a suicidal person gets the police to shoot him or her."

  2. 2
    The act of killing a police officer. informal

    "More weird media excretion: Time Warner homey Ice-T can't say enough nice things about the Man, his employer. Time Warner executives were so supportive during his recent difficulties, he says. They were exceptionally supportive of his totally private and personal decision to recall his ode to copicide from record stores."

Example

More examples

"Carrie told a police negotiator she didn't have the nerve to shoot herself. Later, she'd tell psychiatrist Gwen Levitt she was hoping to commit what the police call "copicide," in which a suicidal person gets the police to shoot him or her."

Etymology

From cop + -icide.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.