an hero

English

Alternative forms

• anhero

Etymology

Originated as a meme on the /b/ board of the 4chan community. Inspired by a grammatical error in a poem written and posted by a classmate to the MySpace memorial page of a teenager who committed suicide in 2006.

Verb

an hero (third-person singular simple present an heros, present participle an heroing, simple past and past participle an heroed)

1. (Internet slang, transitive, intransitive) To commit suicide.
   • 2009 May 9, henri, “Re: NOMINATION - Bill Jillians/"<p>sychotic <c>hicken" For KotM & CotM .. (was) Re: hey guys ... anyone want in on a flame war I'm starting between 2 groups”, in alt.suicide.holiday‎^[1] (Usenet):

     So an hero already.

   • 2012, Parmy Olson, We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency‎^[2], Little, Brown and Company, published 2012, →ISBN:

     It soon became a trend on 4chan to describe someone as “an hero”—before it morphed into the verb form: “I'm going to an hero.”

   • 2013, Trevor James Zaple, chapter 1, in Disappearance, Lulu, published 2013, →ISBN:

     So I’m going to an hero on webcam he continued typing and I’ll post the link to the stream in a second.

Descendants

• → Finnish: sankaroitua (calque)
• → Polish: bohatyrnąć (calque)

Translations

to commit suicide (internet slang)

• Finnish: sankaroitua
• Polish: bohatyrnąć

Noun

an hero (plural an heroes or an heros)

1. (Internet slang) A suicidee; one who commits suicide.
   • 2007 August 10, the_boy_blunder [username], “Fiddildy Fucking Dee, it's enough to make you not want to kill yourself”, in alt.suicide.holiday‎^[3] (Usenet):

     In the clip, Dave Mustaine (our hero of the story, yet not yet "an hero") is shown recording "Through the Darkest Hour" a song about wanting to kill yourself because your bird left you.

   • 2008 December 24, Alex Clark, “Re: Tom Cruise on Kimmel last night”, in alt.religion.scientology‎^[4] (Usenet):

     Some of us were beginning to think you'd made yourself into "an hero" for Christmas, but I always knew you'd be back.

   • 2009 August 22, ., “BECOMING AN HERO”, in alt.suicide.holiday‎^[5] (Usenet):

     I like how I can tell someone that I want to become an hero and they have no idea that I'm talking about suicide.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:an hero.

Anagrams

• Heanor, Hearon