Word.ws English Dictionary

kill devil

kill devil is the alternative form of kill-devil.

Meaning of kill-devil

Noun

kill-devil (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Synonym of rum, an alcoholic beverage distilled from sugarcane, similar spirits.
    • ... I went aboard the Fellowship of 100 and 70 Tuns a Flemish bottom, the Master George Luxon of Bittiford in Devonshire, several of my friends came to bid me farewell, among the rest Captain Thomas Wannerton who drank to me a pint of kill-devil alias Rhum at a draught ...1639 September 24, John Josselyn, Journal in An Account of Two Voyages to New-England... (1673), p. 24
    Synonyms:
    rum

Questions about kill devil

What is kill devil the alternative form of?
Kill devil is the alternative form of kill-devil.

Words near kill devil in the dictionary

  1. kill boxes
  2. kill chain
  3. kill chains
  4. kill cord
  5. kill cords
  6. kill devil
  7. Kill Devil Hills
  8. kill fee
  9. kill fees
  10. kill file
  11. kill filed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kill devil (page history and authors); kill-devil (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “kill devil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kill_devil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.