felo de se

A person is considered a felo de se under old English law.

Definition

1. Noun:
   • Self-murder: "felo de se" is a legal term from Latin meaning "felon of himself," historically referring to the act of suicide, which was considered a criminal offense under English common law. It denotes a person who deliberately takes their own life, thereby committing a felony against themselves.
   • A person who commits suicide: The term also refers to the individual who has committed this act, especially in legal or historical contexts.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • In medieval England, a felo de se was denied a Christian burial and their property was forfeited to the crown. (A person who committed suicide faced legal and religious penalties.)
  • The coroner's inquest returned a verdict of felo de se, classifying the death as self-inflicted and criminal. (The legal investigation determined the death was suicide under the old law.)

Advanced Usage

• "to be adjudged felo de se": to be legally declared a suicide under historical English law.

  • If a person died by their own hand without evidence of insanity, they were adjudged felo de se. (The legal system would label them as a self-murderer.)

• "felo de se in law": a legal principle that treated suicide as a felony, often leading to forfeiture of property and shameful burial.

  • The concept of felo de se in law persisted until the Suicide Act of 1961 in England and Wales. (The legal status of suicide as a crime was abolished in the 20th century.)

Variants and Related Words

• Felones de se (n, pl): the plural form of felo de se, referring to multiple individuals who committed suicide.

  • The records listed several felones de se from the parish in the 17th century. (Multiple suicides were recorded in historical documents.)

• Self-murder (n): a synonym for suicide, especially in legal or archaic usage.

  • The act of self-murder was condemned by religious authorities. (Suicide was considered a sin and a crime.)

Synonyms

• Suicide: the act of intentionally causing one's own death.
• Self-slaughter: an archaic or literary term for suicide.

Related Idioms

• To die by one's own hand: to commit suicide.

  • The poet died by his own hand, a tragic felo de se. (He took his own life.)

• To be one's own executioner: to take responsibility for one's own death.

  • In the legal sense, a felo de se was considered their own executioner. (The person was seen as both the victim and the perpetrator.)