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Killing   /kˈɪlɪŋ/   Listen
verb
Kill  v. t.  (past & past part. killed; pres. part. killing)  
1.
To deprive of life, animal or vegetable, in any manner or by any means; to render inanimate; to put to death; to slay. "Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!"
2.
To destroy; to ruin; as, to kill one's chances; to kill the sale of a book. "To kill thine honor." "Her lively color kill'd with deadly cares."
3.
To cause to cease; to quell; to calm; to still; as, in seamen's language, a shower of rain kills the wind; new sound insultation killed the loud noises from outside. "Be comforted, good madam; the great rage, You see, is killed in him."
4.
To destroy the effect of; to counteract; to neutralize; as, alkali kills acid.
5.
To waste or spend unprofitably; usually used of time; as, he killed an hour waiting for the doctor to see him.
6.
To cancel or forbid publication of (a report, article, etc.), after it has been written; as, they killed the article after getting threats of a lawsuit.
To kill time, to busy one's self with something which occupies the attention, or makes the time pass without tediousness.
Synonyms: To murder; assassinate; slay; butcher; destroy. To Kill, Murder, Assassinate. To kill does not necessarily mean any more than to deprive of life. A man may kill another by accident or in self-defense, without the imputation of guilt. To murder is to kill with malicious forethought and intention. To assassinate is to murder suddenly and by stealth. The sheriff may kill without murdering; the duelist murders, but does not assassinate his antagonist; the assassin kills and murders.


noun
killing  n.  
1.
The act or process of causing a living organism to die.
2.
An unusually large gain in a financial or business transaction or enterprise; as, she made a killing trading cattle futures.


adjective
Killing  adj.  Literally, that kills; having power to kill; fatal; in a colloquial sense, conquering; captivating; irresistible. "Those eyes are made so killing." "Nothing could be more killingly spoken."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Killing" Quotes from Famous Books



... before, I could not do, For cold as ice the fearful thing withdrew; And shrunk behind a wrinkled canopy, Hiding his head from my revenge and me. Thus, by his fear, I'm baulkt of my design, When I in words more killing vent my spleen. ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... miles since meridian yesterday; making six hundred and eighty-six miles in three days, an average of two hundred and twenty-eight and two third miles per diem. Have passed the Windward Islands; are getting anxious now, and even if we do make good runs, yet this practice of killing time by half hours (the bell is struck every half hour), is becoming tedious, as we ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... was compelled to surrender. This enabled Harrison, who had been waiting for months in his fortifications, to advance and pursue Proctor into upper Canada. On October 5 he brought him to action near the river Thames, winning a complete victory and killing Tecumseh. The Americans then returned to Detroit, and the Indian war gradually simmered down, until in August, 1814, the leading tribes made peace. To the eastward no such decisive action took place. Sir James ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... who preferred the spear to the crosier, but who perished by an arrow in the contest. Of its history, up to the sixteenth century, I am not able to give any details; but in the wars of Henry IV. with the League, in 1589, it was taken by surprise by soldiers in the disguise of sailors: who, killing the centinels, quickly made themselves masters of the place. Henry caused it afterwards to be dismantled. In the first half of the eighteenth century it received very severe treatment from pillage, for the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... drovers, but at the first word of it my voice died in my throat. There might be a limit to the lawyer's toleration, I reflected. I had not been so long in Britain altogether; for the most part of that time I had been by the heels in limbo in Edinburgh Castle; and already I had confessed to killing one man with a pair of scissors; and now I was to go on and plead guilty to having settled another with a holly stick! A wave of discretion went over me as cold and as deep ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson


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