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seppuku

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.42 sec.
seppuku: see hara-kiri hara-kiri (här`ə-kēr`ē, hăr`ə–) [Jap.
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seppuku

 or hara-kiri

Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment, practiced by members of the samurai class. Suicide by disembowelment was favoured because it was slow and painful and therefore demonstrated courage, self-control, and strong resolve. Voluntary seppuku was performed to avoid the dishonour of capture, show loyalty to one's lord by following him into death, protest against some policy of a superior, or atone for failure. Obligatory seppuku was a method of capital punishment for a samurai, who would be beheaded by a second once he had made an initial stab wound himself. Obligatory seppuku was abolished in 1873, but voluntary seppuku continued to occur. Notable 20th-century examples included those of army officer Nogi Maresuke and writer Yukio Mishima. See also bushido.
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So rather than witness some of my colleagues threaten to commit seppuku (ritual disembowelment in Japanese), I took their advice and toned down the rhetoric.
Introduction by Rutka, John / Ear, Nose and Throat Journal
Shurkin's biography, Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age, is like watching a successful, formidable individual commit a very public seppuku.
Wired by Schneider, Howard / The Humanist
Butterfly adopt some version of psychoanalytic poststructuralism in reading it as a critique of Orientalism, an inversion of Puccini in which the French diplomat assumes the role of Butterfly and commits seppuku, a reception that Hwang's own characterization of the play as a "deconstructivist Madame Butterfly" both predicts and elicits.
Projected bodies in David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly and Golden Gate by Shin, Andrew / MELUS
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