kill

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See also: Kill and kíll

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /kɪl/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪl

Etymology 1

From Middle English killen, kyllen, cüllen (“to strike, beat, cut”), of obscure origin.

Compare also Middle Dutch killen, kellen (“to kill”), Middle Low German killen (“to ache strongly, cause one great pain”), Middle High German kellen (“to torment; torture”).

Verb

kill (third-person singular simple present kills, present participle killing, simple past and past participle killed)

  1. (transitive) To put to death; to extinguish the life of.
    Smoking kills more people each year than alcohol and drugs combined.
  2. (transitive) To render inoperative.
    He killed the engine and turned off the headlights, but remained in the car, waiting.
    • 1978, John Farris, The Fury
      Peter: Ask Childers if it was worth his arm.
      Policeman: What did you do to his arm, Peter?
      Peter: I killed it, with a machine gun.
  3. (transitive, figuratively) To stop, cease, or render void; to terminate.
    The editor decided to kill the story.
    The news that a hurricane had destroyed our beach house killed our plans to sell it.
    My computer wouldn't respond until I killed some of the running processes.
  4. (transitive, figuratively, hyperbolic) To amaze, exceed, stun, or otherwise incapacitate.
    That night, she was dressed to kill.
    That joke always kills me.
  5. (transitive, figuratively, hyperbolic) To cause great pain, discomfort, or distress to.
    These tight shoes are killing my feet.
    • 2008 October, Davy Rothbart, “How I caught up with dad”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 8, →ISSN, page 110:
      two laps into our first walk, my dad needed to sit down. His back and legs were killing him. "You'll be okay," I assured him. "You just need to shake off the rust."
      I gave him a couple ofAdvil and, after a few minutes, urged him back onto the track.
  6. (transitive, figuratively) To produce feelings of dissatisfaction or revulsion in.
    It kills me to throw out three whole turkeys, but I can't get anyone to take them and they've already started to go bad.
    It kills me to learn how many poor people are practically starving in this country while rich moguls spend such outrageous amounts on useless luxuries.
  7. (transitive) To use up or to waste.
    I'm just doing this to kill time.
    • 2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
      Except for the shirt, which he’d worn, and the check, which he’d cashed, and the bottle of port, which he’d killed in bed on Christmas night, the gifts from his family were still on the floor of his bedroom.
  8. (transitive, figuratively, informal) To exert an overwhelming effect on.
    Look at the amount of destruction to the enemy base. We pretty much killed their ability to retaliate anymore.
  9. (transitive, figuratively, hyperbolic) To overpower, overwhelm, or defeat.
    The team had absolutely killed their traditional rivals, and the local sports bars were raucous with celebrations.
  10. (transitive) To force a company out of business.
  11. (intransitive, informal, hyperbolic) To produce intense pain.
    You don't ever want to get rabies. The doctor will have to give you multiple shots and they really kill.
  12. (figuratively, informal, hyperbolic, transitive) To punish severely.
    My parents are going to kill me!
  13. (transitive, sports) To strike (a ball, etc.) with such force and placement as to make a shot that is impossible to defend against, usually winning a point.
    • 2011 February 4, Gareth Roberts, “Wales 19-26 England”, in BBC‎[2]:
      That close call encouraged Wales to launch another series of attacks that ended when lock Louis Deacon killed the ball illegally in the shadow of England's posts.
  14. (transitive, sports) To cause (a ball, etc.) to be out of play, resulting in a stoppage of gameplay.
    • 2015 May 10, Nathan Schmook, “Billings vs Bont”, in St Kilda Football Club‎[3]:
      As the ball was delivered deep into St Kilda's forward line by Billings, Bontempelli had position on the goal line, with a pack forming in front of him. He decided to fly but didn't kill the ball, leaving it to spill where he had been positioned moments earlier. Jack Sinclair gratefully swooped and kicked a goal that cut the margin to five points.
  15. To succeed with an audience, especially in comedy.
    • 2012, Yael Kohen, We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy‎[4]:
      When comics fail, they "die"; when they succeed, they "kill."
    • 2016 February 23, Tim Gray, “Chris Rock Tests Jokes at Comedy Clubs Ahead of Oscars”, in Variety‎[5]:
      You really killed it at the Comedy Store last night.
  16. (mathematics, transitive, informal) To cause to assume the value zero.
  17. (computing, Internet, IRC, transitive) To disconnect (a user) involuntarily from the network.
  18. (metallurgy) To deadmelt.
  19. (slang) To sexually penetrate in a skillful way.
    • 1992, Ice Cube (lyrics and music), “It Was A Good Day”, in The Predator:
      I felt on her big fat fanny/Pulled out the jammy and killed the punanni
  20. (reflexive, informal) To exert oneself to an excessive degree.
    Don't kill yourself raking the leaves now; we're due for a windstorm tonight.
Synonyms
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

kill (plural kills)

  1. The act of killing.
    The assassin liked to make a clean kill, and thus favored small arms over explosives.
  2. Specifically, the death blow.
    The hunter delivered the kill with a pistol shot to the head.
  3. The result of killing; that which has been killed.
    The fox dragged its kill back to its den.
  4. (volleyball) The grounding of the ball on the opponent's court, winning the rally.
    • 2011, the 34th Catawba College Sports Hall of Fame, in Catawba College's Campus Magazine, Spring/Summer 2011, page 21:
      As a senior in 1993, Turner had a kill percentage of 40.8, which was a school record at the time and the best in the SAC. Turner concluded her volleyball career with 1,349 kills, ranking fifth all-time at Catawba.
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

Borrowing from Dutch kil, from Middle Dutch kille.

Noun

kill (plural kills)

  1. (north-east US) A creek; a body of water; a channel or arm of the sea.
    The channel beyond Staten Island, which connects Newark Bay with Bergen Neck is the Kill van Kull, or the Kills.
    Schuylkill, Catskill, etc.
Translations
body of water

Etymology 3

Noun

kill (plural kills)

  1. (rare) Alternative form of kiln
    • 1878, Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt, The Ceramic Art of Great Britain from Pre-historic Times Down to the Present Day, page 39:
      This very curious and valuable record is as follows, in the handwriting of Conyers and the accompanying engraving is carefully reduced (see Fig. 138 ) from Conyers' own drawing:—“This kill was full of the coarser sorts of potts or cullings, so that few were saved whole, viz., lamps, bottles, urnes, dishes.
    • 1945, Arthur Edwin James, The Potters and Potteries of Chester County, Pennsylvania, page 34:
      The stack of one of the pottery kills is still a visible land mark of this once thriving industry.
    • 1951, Bulletin - Eastern States Archeological Federation, page 11:
      A funerary ceremony comparable to that reported from Kolomoki site is indicated, though no "pottery kill” was located.
    • 2000, Argo - Volume 43, Issue 1, page 59:
      We may indeed assume that cracked and broken ware was discarded in the immediate vicinity of the pottery kills, that is, if it was not thrown in to the Krka.

Cahuilla

Adverb

kíll

  1. Not

German

Pronunciation

Verb

kill

  1. singular imperative of killen
  2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of killen

Livonian

Etymology 1

From Lua error in Module:parameters at line 360: Parameter 2 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "fiu-fin-pro" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E.. Cognate with Finnish kylvää.

Alternative forms

Verb

kill

  1. sow

Etymology 2

From Lua error in Module:parameters at line 360: Parameter 2 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "fiu-fin-pro" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E.. Cognate with Estonian kõlama.

Alternative forms

Verb

kill

  1. ring
  2. make noise

Luxembourgish

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Old High German kuoli, from Proto-West Germanic *kōl(ī), from Proto-Germanic *kōlaz. Cognate with German kühl, English cool, Dutch koel, Low German kool.

Adjective

kill (masculine killen, neuter killt, comparative méi kill, superlative am killsten)

  1. cool
Declension
declension of kill
number and gender singular plural
masculine feminine neuter all genders
predicative hien ass kill si ass kill et ass kill si si(nn) kill
nominative /
accusative 		attributive and/or after determiner killen kill killt kill
independent without determiner killes killer
dative after any declined word killen killer killen killen
as first declined word killem killem

Etymology 2

Verb

kill

  1. second-person singular imperative of killen

Ter Sami

Etymology

From Proto-Samic *kielë.

Noun

kill

  1. language

Derived terms

Further reading

  • Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages‎[6], Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland

Westrobothnian

Etymology

From Lua error in Module:parameters at line 360: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "gmq-bot" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E..

Noun

Lua error in Module:parameters at line 360: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "gmq-bot" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E.

  1. female kid (young goat)
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