kill

To kill is to end the life of some living being or something else. So, you could kill a deer by shooting it with a hunting rifle or kill a bill by voting against it.

Hunters kill animals for their meat, and drivers sometimes kill an animal accidentally, or inadvertently kill a plant, simply by forgetting to water it. Certain inanimate things are also said to kill, like poison or disease or drunk driving. In each of these cases, death is caused and life is taken. You can also kill figuratively, as when a school board kills the foreign language program or a thunderstorm kills your hopes of a picnic.

Definitions of kill
  1. verb
    cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly
    “This man killed several people when he tried to rob a bank”
    “The farmer killed a pig for the holidays”
    see moresee less
    types:
    show 46 types...
    hide 46 types...
    annihilate, carry off, decimate, eliminate, eradicate, extinguish, wipe out
    kill in large numbers
    decimate
    kill one in every ten, as of mutineers in Roman armies
    drown
    kill by submerging in water
    massacre, mow down, slaughter
    kill a large number of people indiscriminately
    erase, wipe out
    remove from memory or existence
    butcher, slaughter
    kill (animals) usually for food consumption
    poison
    kill with poison
    lapidate, stone
    kill by throwing stones at
    poison
    kill by its poison
    commit suicide
    kill oneself
    dispatch
    kill without delay
    vaporize, zap
    kill with or as if with a burst of gunfire or electric current or as if by shooting
    sacrifice
    kill or destroy
    take off
    prove fatal
    tomahawk
    kill with a tomahawk
    destroy, put down
    put (an animal) to death
    saber, sabre
    kill with a saber
    overlay, overlie
    kill by lying on
    brain
    kill by smashing someone's skull
    put away, put to sleep
    kill gently, as with an injection
    do in, knock off, liquidate, neutralise, neutralize, waste
    get rid of (someone who may be a threat) by killing
    exterminate, kill off
    kill en masse; kill on a large scale; kill many
    asphyxiate, smother, suffocate
    deprive of oxygen and prevent from breathing
    strangle, strangulate, throttle
    kill by squeezing the throat of so as to cut off the air
    behead, decapitate, decollate
    cut the head of
    impale, stake
    kill by piercing with a spear or sharp pole
    dismember
    separate the limbs from the body
    martyr
    kill as a martyr
    shed blood
    kill violently
    bump off, dispatch, hit, murder, off, polish off, remove, slay
    kill intentionally and with premeditation
    assassinate
    murder; especially of socially prominent persons
    execute, put to death
    kill as a means of socially sanctioned punishment
    draw, draw and quarter, quarter
    pull (a person) apart with four horses tied to his extremities, so as to execute him
    lynch
    kill without legal sanction
    pip, shoot
    kill by firing a missile
    electrocute, fry
    kill by electrocution, as in the electric chair
    chine
    cut through the backbone of an animal
    guillotine
    kill by cutting the head off with a guillotine
    garotte, garrote, garrotte, scrag
    strangle with an iron collar
    burke
    murder without leaving a trace on the body
    crucify
    kill by nailing onto a cross
    execute
    murder in a planned fashion
    flight
    shoot a bird in flight
    pick off
    shoot one by one
    burn
    burn at the stake
    hang, string up
    kill by hanging
  2. verb
    be fatal
    “cigarettes kill”
    “drunken driving kills”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    be
    have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)
  3. verb
    deprive of life
    “AIDS has killed thousands in Africa”
    see moresee less
    types:
    strike down
    cause to die, especially suddenly
  4. verb
    cause the death of, without intention
    “She was killed in the collision of three cars”
    see moresee less
    types:
    electrocute
    kill by electric shock
  5. noun
    the act of terminating a life
    synonyms: killing, putting to death
    see moresee less
    types:
    show 26 types...
    hide 26 types...
    coup de grace, deathblow
    the blow that kills (usually mercifully)
    death
    the act of killing
    euthanasia, mercy killing
    the act of killing someone painlessly (especially someone suffering from an incurable illness)
    homicide
    the killing of a human being by another human being
    despatch, dispatch
    killing a person or animal
    fell
    the act of felling something (as a tree)
    self-annihilation, self-destruction, suicide
    the act of killing yourself
    slaughter
    the killing of animals (as for food)
    poisoning
    the act of giving poison to a person or animal with the intent to kill
    asphyxiation, suffocation
    killing by depriving of oxygen
    ritual killing, sacrifice
    the act of killing (an animal or person) in order to propitiate a deity
    electrocution
    killing by electric shock
    beheading, decapitation
    killing by cutting off the head
    genocide, race murder, racial extermination
    systematic killing of a racial or cultural group
    honor killing
    an ancient tradition still sometimes observed; a male member of the family kills a female relative for tarnishing the family image
    manslaughter
    homicide without malice aforethought
    execution, murder, slaying
    unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by a human being
    assisted suicide
    suicide of a terminally ill person that involves an assistant who serves to make dying as painless and dignified as possible
    felo-de-se
    an act of deliberate self destruction
    hara-kiri, harakiri, harikari, seppuku
    ritual suicide by self-disembowelment on a sword; practiced by samurai in the traditional Japanese society
    suttee
    the act of a Hindu widow willingly cremating herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband
    gassing
    the deliberate act of poisoning some person or animal with gas
    shooting
    killing someone by gunfire
    choking, strangling, strangulation, throttling
    the act of suffocating (someone) by constricting the windpipe
    hecatomb
    a great sacrifice; an ancient Greek or Roman sacrifice of 100 oxen
    immolation
    killing or offering as a sacrifice
    type of:
    conclusion, ending, termination
    the act of ending something
  6. noun
    the destruction of an enemy plane or ship or tank or missile
    “the pilot reported two kills during the mission”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    destruction, devastation
    the termination of something by causing so much damage to it that it cannot be repaired or no longer exists
  7. verb
    end or extinguish by forceful means
    synonyms: stamp out
    see moresee less
    type of:
    end, terminate
    bring to an end or halt
  8. verb
    cause to cease operating
    “kill the engine”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    cut, switch off, turn off, turn out
    cause to stop operating by disengaging a switch
  9. verb
    destroy a vitally essential quality of or in
    “Eating artichokes kills the taste of all other foods”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    destroy, destruct
    do away with, cause the destruction or undoing of
  10. verb
    thwart the passage of
    “kill a motion”
    synonyms: defeat, shoot down, vote down, vote out
    see moresee less
    type of:
    blackball, negative, veto
    vote against; refuse to endorse; refuse to assent
  11. verb
    hit with great force
    “He killed the ball”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    hit
    cause to move by striking
  12. verb
    hit with so much force as to make a return impossible, in racket games
    “She killed the ball”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    hit
    cause to move by striking
  13. verb
    mark for deletion, rub off, or erase
    “kill these lines in the President's speech”
    synonyms: obliterate, wipe out
    see moresee less
    type of:
    take away, take out
    take out or remove
  14. verb
    tire out completely
    “The daily stress of her work is killing her”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    beat, exhaust, tucker, tucker out, wash up
    wear out completely
  15. verb
    be the source of great pain for
    “These new shoes are killing me!”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    ache, hurt, suffer
    feel physical pain
  16. verb
    overwhelm with hilarity, pleasure, or admiration
    “The comedian was so funny, he was killing me!”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    overcome, overpower, overtake, overwhelm, sweep over, whelm
    overcome, as with emotions or perceptual stimuli
  17. verb
    drink down entirely
    “She killed a bottle of brandy that night”
    synonyms: belt down, bolt down, down, drink down, pop, pour down, toss off
    see moresee less
    type of:
    drink, imbibe
    take in liquids
Word Family