killing
nounEtymology From Middle English kyllyng; equivalent to kill + -ing.
1
The act of killing.
- In fact, Tarzan had never killed for “pleasure,” nor to him was there pleasure in killing.1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Numa ‘El Adrea’”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, pages 116–117:
2
An instance of someone being killed.
- The outrage over the brutal killings of peaceful demonstrators in Lhasa in March 1989 quickly faded after the massacres in Beijing in June.1992, Richard Nixon, “The Pacific Triangle”, in Seize the Moment, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 180:
- A police officer in neighboring Mekit county told RFA he was informed that police were searching the houses for a suspect from Pichan (in Chinese, Shanshan) county in Xinjiang’s Turpan prefecture when the killings occurred.2013 April 24, Shohret Hoshur, Qiao Long, Hai Nan, Luisetta Mudie, Parameswaran Ponnudurai, “Xinjiang Violence Leaves 21 Dead”, in Dolkun Kamberi, Luisetta Mudie, Mamatjan Juma, transl., Radio Free Asia:
3 more examples
- But the split-screen nature of this moment in his presidency was underscored when Mr. Trump devoted the first nine minutes of his speech to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests and riots unfolding in cities across the country.2020 May 30, Peter Baker, “Trump Hopes for His Own Booster Shot From SpaceX Rocket Launch”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 02 Jul 2020, retrieved 30 May 2020:
- A man shot dead 12 people in a rampage in a small town in Montenegro before dying from self-inflicted injuries early on Thursday, authorities said, in one of the tiny Balkan nation’s worst mass killings.2025 January 1, Reuters, “Suspect in Montenegro shooting dies from self-inflicted injuries after killing at least 12 people”, in CNN:
- In the first year of her administration, ACLED data shows, Sheinbaum’s efforts to contain violence have generally coincided with a drop in attacks against civilians; since January, civilian killings have declined in nearly every Mexican state.2025 August 18, Rocío Muñoz-Ledo, Avery Schmitz, Veronica Calderon, “A cartel war bleeding Sinaloa dry: homicides rise 400% in the year after the fall of ‘El Mayo’”, in CNN:
3
Informal, Usually, As make a killing A large amount of money.
- He made a killing on the stock market.
- The result is, in the end, the superintendent agrees to hold up another race, and the victim arranges to obtain all the money he can get in order to bet it on a sure thing. When the great "killing" is made, and the stripped victim goes back to consult with the superintendent[…]1916, Melville Davisson Post, “The Man Hunters”, in The Saturday Evening Post:
- Synonyms
- killing
- Derived terms
- antikilling, contract killing, counterkilling, honour killing, honor killing, killing bottle, killing box, killing frost, killing jar, killingry, ladykilling, make a killing, nonkilling, painkilling, photokilling, self-killing, semikilling, targeted killing, Terms derived from killing, thrill killing, time-killing, weedkilling
- Hyponyms
40 terms
devitalization, liquidation, murder, slaughter, homicide, manslaughter, assassination, infanticide, parricide, filicide, familicide, fratricide, sororicide, patricide, matricide, uxoricide, regicide, tsaricide, deicide, monstricide, massacre, butchery, carnage, bloodbath, bloodshed, execution, crucifixion, beheading, decapitation, electrocution, hanging, lapidation, lethal injection, stoning, self-murder, self-slaughter, suicide, kamikaze, seppuku, hara-kiri