Word.ws English Dictionary

killed one's darlings

killed one's darlings is the simple past and past participle of kill one's darlings.

Meaning of kill one's darlings

Verb

kill one's darlings (third-person singular simple present kills one's darlings, present participle killing one's darlings, simple past and past participle killed one's darlings)

  1. (idiomatic) To destroy things or characters, particularly in art, of which one is fond, often reluctantly in order to improve one's artistic output.
    • Someone asked William Faulkner what the supreme law of art was, and he replied in three words: "Kill your darlings!"1965, Raymond Léopold Bruckerger, The History of Jesus Christ, page 161

Questions about killed one's darlings

What is killed one's darlings the simple past and past participle of?
Killed one's darlings is the simple past and past participle of kill one's darlings.

Words near killed one's darlings in the dictionary

  1. Killebrews
  2. killed
  3. killed in action
  4. killed it
  5. killed off
  6. killed one's darlings
  7. killed oneself
  8. killed someone dead
  9. killed the fatted calf
  10. killed the goose that laid the golden eggs
  11. killed time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: killed one's darlings (page history and authors); kill one's darlings (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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