seppuku

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

“Each time samurai would commit the ritual suicide of seppuku, they would first read the death poem they had prepared in order to summarize their life and make sense of it,” Murakami said.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 18, 2026

“I loved it. But it’d be committing theatrical seppuku to transfer it,” a theater critic mutters to another at the show’s after party.

From New York Times • Aug. 19, 2021

Cicadas have a much higher-stakes conundrum when it comes to their sort of reproductive seppuku: they die shortly after mating, offering themselves up in order to ensure the continuation of the next generation.

From Scientific American • Jun. 14, 2021

It sounds as if she would gladly commit seppuku, if only that didn’t require the sin of cultural appropriation: “I am wholly sorry for the pain and anger I caused you,” she wrote.

From The Wall Street Journal • Aug. 21, 2016

Now, my readers will understand that hara-kiri, or seppuku, was not a mere suicidal process.

From Empires and Emperors of Russia, China, Korea, and Japan Notes and Recollections by Monsignor Count Vay de Vaya and Luskod by Vay, P?ter