kill
verb · noun
Simple meaning
Cause the death of, without intention.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kilIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɪl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Cause the death of, without intention
“She was killed in the collision of three cars.”
Cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly
“This man killed several people when he tried to rob a bank.”
transitive
To put to death; to extinguish the life of.
Be the source of great pain for
“These new shoes are killing me!”
transitivefiguratively
To stop, cease, or render void; to terminate.
transitive
To render inoperative.
noun
The act of killing.
The result of killing; that which has been killed.
Specifically, the death blow.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Cause the death of, without intention
Used this way, kill is a common word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“She was killed in the collision of three cars.”
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “kill in …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: kill in …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Causeverb
“She was killed in the collision of three cars.”
Sourceverb
“These new shoes are killing me!”
More ways to use kill
- “Smoking kills more people each year than alcohol and drugs combined.”verb
- “The assassin liked to make a clean kill, and thus favored small arms over explosives.”noun
- “The fox dragged its kill back to its den.”noun
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
An event that causes someone to die.
Someone who causes the death of a person or animal.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An investment banker who devises strategies to make a target company less attractive for takeover.
T cell with CD8 receptor that recognizes antigens on the surface of a virus-infected cell and binds to the infected cell and kill it.
T cell with CD8 receptor that recognizes antigens on the surface of a virus-infected cell and binds to the infected cell and kill it.
Predatory black-and-white toothed whale with large dorsal fin.
An area where a battle has occurred with many fatalities.
An area where many people have died (usually by massacre or genocide during war or violent civil disturbance).
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.