kill
/ˈkɪl/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.09 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Smoking kills more people each year than alcohol and hard drugs combined."
- "A Troope of Horſe with Felt: Ile put't in proofe, / And when I haue ſtolne vpon theſe Son in Lawes, / Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill."
- "Stephano: Monſter, I will kill this man : his daughter and I will be King and Queene, ſave our Graces : and Trinculo and thy ſelfe ſhall be Vice-royes : […]"
- "Fire ants circumvented the problem of an ineffective sting by having an unusual and highly effective venom that when daubed or sprayed on other ants penetrates their waxy protective integumental barrier and kills or disables them."
- "Indeed, referring to his drone murder extermination campaign Obama bragged: "I'm really good at killing people!" Those are Obama's own words!"
- "As the country reckons with how to prevent more children from being killed at school, the legacies of the Parkland victims live on."
Etymology
From Middle English killen, kyllen, cüllen (“to strike, beat, cut”), of obscure origin. Cognate with Scots kele, keil (“to kill”). * Perhaps from unattested Old English *cyllan, from Proto-West Germanic *kwulljan, from Proto-Germanic *kwuljaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to throw, hit, hurt by throwing”). * Or, possibly a variant of Old English cwellan (“to kill, murder, execute”) (see quell). * Or, from Old Norse kolla (“to hit on the head, harm”), related to Norwegian kylla (“to poll”), Middle Dutch kollen (“to knock down”), Icelandic kollur (“top, head”); see also coll, cole). Compare also Saterland Frisian källe (“to hurt”), Middle Dutch kellen (“to kill, hurt”), Middle Low German kellen, killen (“to ache strongly, cause one great pain”) (whence German Low German kellen, killen (“to hurt, injure, torment, vex”)), Middle High German kellen (“to torment; torture”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈkɪl/
- British English: /ˈkɪl/
Usage
Inflected Forms
kills (present, singular)
killing (participle, present)
killed (participle, past)
killed (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
killed (first person, past)
killest (archaic, present)
killed (past, second person)
killedst (archaic, past)
killeth (archaic, present)
killed (past, singular)