"sich tödten", is it an old fashioned way of saying "töten"?
Sie wollte es nicht fallen lassen, aus Furcht Jemand unter sich zu tödten.
She did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody.

I was reading Alice's Abenteuer im Wunderland translated by Antonie Zimmermann, and came across the sentence above. I couldn't find the word "tödten" in Duden. Under the entry "töten", there is "sich töten", however it means "Selbstmord begehen". Could someone explain it to me? Thank you very much!

Question

"sich tödten", is it an old fashioned way of saying "töten"?
Sie wollte es nicht fallen lassen, aus Furcht Jemand unter sich zu tödten.
She did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody.

I was reading Alice's Abenteuer im Wunderland translated by Antonie Zimmermann, and came across the sentence above. I couldn't find the word "tödten" in Duden. Under the entry "töten", there is "sich töten", however it means "Selbstmord begehen". Could someone explain it to me? Thank you very much!

Answer

... for fear of killing somebody under her/underneath. The "sich" belongs to "unter", it's not "sich tö(d)ten" here.

Answer

"tödten" is an older, sophisticated way of writing "töten".
So, yes you're right :)
But it's " jemanden tödten" ( to kill somebody); "sich" is added to emphasize direction.
"sich tödten" on it's own, means "to kill oneself".

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