self-delete

English

Etymology

From self- +‎ delete.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Verb

self-delete (third-person singular simple present self-deletes, present participle self-deleting, simple past and past participle self-deleted)

1. (Internet slang, humorous, euphemistic, intransitive) To commit suicide; to take one's own life.
2. (informal, jargon, intransitive) To self-destruct.
3. (computing, programming, intransitive) Of code, to overwrite itself upon completion, usually with 0x00 or 0xFF bytes that represent an unwritten region.

Usage notes

• The term self-delete is most often used on the Internet to bypass automatic filters that censor words such as suicide or kill oneself.

Derived terms

• self-deletion