kill
Definitions
General English
- verb to make someone or something die
General Science
- noun an act of making someone or something die
Computing
Construction
- To terminate electrical current from a circuit.
- To prevent resin from bleeding through paint on wood by the preliminary application to knots of a shellac or other resin-resistant coating.
Information & Library Science
- verb to erase or stop a computer program
Media Studies
Military
- noun the killing of an enemy soldier or destruction of an enemy aircraft, vehicle or ship, when viewed as a result
- verb to deprive a person or animal of life
Politics
- verb to stop discussion of a proposal
Publishing
- noun to delete a whole story or article from a newspaper or magazine after it has been worked on
Sports
- verb to bring a fast-moving ball under instant control
- verb to hit the ball so hard, with such skill or in such a direction that your opponent has no chance of returning it
- verb to hit a ball very hard
Origin & History of “kill”
The Old English verbs for ‘kill’ were slēan, source of modern English slay, and cwellan, which has become modern English quell. The latter came from a prehistoric Germanic *kwaljan, which it has been suggested may have had a variant *kuljan that could have become Old English *cyllan. If such a verb did exist, it would be a plausible ancestor for modern English kill. when this first appeared in early middle English it was used for ‘hit’, but the meanings ‘hit’ and ‘kill’ often coexist in the same word (slay once meant ‘hit’ as well as ‘kill’, as is shown by the related sledgehammer); the sense ‘deprive of life’ emerged in the 14th century.
