kill – English noun declension

English noun forms of kill

Noun: kill
Singularkill
Pluralkills

Sample Sentences

  • The assassin liked to make a clean kill, and thus favored small arms over explosives.
  • The blonde women were in a frenzy of excitement, their faces transformed from dull moronity to living evil; they shouted like wild animals at the kill. [1957, Sydney J. Bounds, The Robot Brains, London: Digit Books, page 100:]
  • The hunter delivered the kill with a pistol shot to the head.
  • The fox dragged its kill back to its den.
  • If ye plunder his kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride. [1895 November, Rudyard Kipling, The Second Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC:]
  • confirmed kills
  • A flying ace is usually one with five or more confirmed kills.
  • As a senior in 1993, Turner had a kill percentage of 40.8, which was a school record at the time and the best in the SAC. Turner concluded her volleyball career with 1,349 kills, ranking fifth all-time at Catawba. [2011, the 34th Catawba College Sports Hall of Fame, in Catawba College's Campus Magazine, Spring/Summer 2011, page 21]

Etymology

1. From Middle English killen, kyllen, cüllen (“to strike, beat, cut”), of obscure origin. Cognate with Scots kele, keil (“to kill”).
2. * 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”).
3. * Or, possibly a variant of Old English cwellan (“to kill, murder, execute”) (see quell).
4. * 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).
5. 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”). See: Old English Nouns '*cyllan', Old English Nouns 'cwellan', Old Norse Nouns 'kolla', Icelandic Nouns 'kollur'.