Kill
verbTo cause the death of a living thing, or to bring something to an end.
How to spell kill
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce kill
What does kill mean?
- verbTo cause the death of a living thing, or to bring something to an end.
- nounAn act of killing, or the animal that has been killed by a hunter or predator.
Kill in a sentence
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verb
The late frost can kill the young seedlings overnight.
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noun
The lioness dragged her kill into the shade of the tree.
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verb
The new regulations will effectively kill the smaller businesses.
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noun
The documentary showed the wolves circling before the kill.
Where does kill come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word kill appears in Middle English as cullen or killen, meaning to strike, to beat, or to put to death. Its deeper origin is debated, but it is generally traced to Old English roots connected with cwellan, meaning to slay or to quell, and it sits close to the family that also gave us the modern verb quell. By the medieval period the harsher sense of taking life had largely won out over the older, broader idea of merely striking a blow. The word is solidly Germanic in character, sharing kinship with Dutch and Low German forms for striking and slaughtering. Because it is short and phonetically transparent, with a doubled l after a short vowel, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable and presents little difficulty.
How the word is built
- kill (single root verb of Germanic origin; no prefix or suffix)
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