kill

Universal Words verb, noun verb 1 to make sb/sth die: [VN] Cancer kills thousands of people every year. * Three people were killed in the crash. * He tried to kill himself with sleeping pills. * I bought a spray to kill the weeds. * (informal) My mother will kill me (= be very angry with me) when she finds out what I've done. * Don't kill yourself trying to get the work done by tomorrow. It can wait. * I nearly killed myself carrying that suitcase all the way here. * [V] Excessive tiredness while driving can kill. 2 [VN] to destroy or spoil sth or make it stop: to kill a rumour / story * Do you agree that television kills conversation? * The defeat last night killed the team's chances of qualifying. 3 (informal) (usually used in the progressive tenses and not used in the passive) to cause sb pain or suffering: [VN] My feet are killing me. [also VNtoinf] 4 [VN] to make sb laugh a lot: (BrE) He was killing himself laughing. * (AmE) Stop it! You're killing me! IDIOMS kill the goose that lays the golden egg / eggs (saying) to destroy sth that would make you rich, successful, etc. kill or cure (BrE) used to say that what you are going to do will either be very successful or fail completely kill time