Word.ws English Dictionary

killing one's darlings

killing one's darlings is the present participle and gerund 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 killing one's darlings

What is killing one's darlings the present participle and gerund of?
Killing one's darlings is the present participle and gerund of kill one's darlings.

Words near killing one's darlings in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: killing 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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