Definition of "suttee" [sut•tee]

• The now illegal act or practice of a Hindu widow's cremating herself on her husband's funeral pyre in order to fulfill her true role as wife. (noun)
• A widow who commits such an act. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Another gem from this Steyn book: In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" - the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands."
• "You might consider India and the outlawed 'suttee', where a widow would climb on the funeral pyre of her dead husband."
• "They have been spoonfed lies and distortions about the British Empire, so that they bleat about how ashamed they are of it, forgetting that for all its faults it gave parliamentary democracy to the world (or tried to), and abolished excesses such as suttee and thuggee."