Word.ws English Dictionary

killing off

killing off is the present participle and gerund of kill off.

Meaning of kill off

Verb

kill off (third-person singular simple present kills off, present participle killing off, simple past and past participle killed off)

  1. (transitive) To eliminate, to make extinct.
    • We killed off the Dodo by over-hunting.
  2. Of writers or producers, to permanently take a character out of a television series or other work by purposefully and deliberately having them killed within the plot.
    • The writers are killing off lots of people in the soap opera.
  3. (figuratively, transitive) To put an end to.
    • (Jason) The only thing I had handy to send them was this one dinky little program I'd written for fun.
      (Mom) And it killed off interest?
      (Jason) Actually, it killed off the Internet.1999 January 16, Bill Amend, FoxTrot

Questions about killing off

What is killing off the present participle and gerund of?
Killing off is the present participle and gerund of kill off.

Words near killing off in the dictionary

  1. Killing horizon
  2. Killing horizons
  3. killing it
  4. killing jar
  5. killing jars
  6. killing off
  7. killing one's darlings
  8. killing oneself
  9. killing someone dead
  10. killing spree
  11. killing sprees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: killing off (page history and authors); kill off (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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