Learn how to use the verb "Kill"
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| Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Know Your Verbs. My name is Alisha and, in this episode, we're going to talk about the verb, "kill." Let's get started. |
| The basic definition of this verb is to end the life of someone or something. Examples, "The murderer killed four people." "I hate killing cockroaches." |
| Okay, let's look at the conjugations for this verb. Present tense, kill, kills. Past tense, killed. Past participle tense, killed. Progressive, killing. |
| Alright. So, now, let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb. |
| The first one is to put an end to something. To put an end to something or to cause something to finish. Examples, "Our poor sales killed our chance of success," "The CEOs decision killed our project." Alright, so, in both of these examples, we see something coming to an end, something finishes because of something else. So, in the first example sentence, "Poor sales killed our chances of success," meaning the poor sales resulted in or caused an end to our chances of success. That means there was no more chance of success because of poor sales. The poor sales killed it. In the second example sentence, "The CEOs decision killed our project." There, the CEO made a decision that caused the project to end, that caused the project to stop so we use "kill" to explain this. |
| Okay, the second additional meaning for the verb is to cause pain. Examples, "My head is killing me," "He says his back has been killing him for two weeks." So, in these sentences, we see kill in the progressive tense. This is quite common. So, something is killing me, something is killing him. It doesn't actually mean that person's life is going to end, it means the pain is very strong, the pain is extremely bad and it feels like they're dying. It's like it's so bad, it's so uncomfortable. We use the expression "killing." Like I said, we tend to use this in the progressive tense. We don't really say, "My head killed me," that sounds strange. Or, "My head kills me," but rather, "My head is killing me," because it's like a temporary situation. Remember, we use the continuous or the progressive tense for temporary situations and pain, in most cases, is temporary so we say, "this is killing me." |
| The next meaning is to become very angry, to become very angry with someone. Let's look at some examples first. "Oh, man, my boss is gonna kill me for this mistake," "Your mom is gonna kill you for making such a mess." This expression doesn't really mean that someone's life is going to end. Instead, this use of "kill me," it means that someone is going to become very, very angry. So, in the first example sentence, "Oh, man, my boss is gonna kill me for this mistake." It means I made a mistake and my boss is going to be very, very angry with me because of my mistake. So, it doesn't mean the boss is going to end this person's life, just the boss is going to be very angry. In the second example sentence, "Your mom is gonna kill you for making such a mess." Again, it means the mother is going to be very, very angry at the other person in the conversation. The mother is going to be so mad because of the mess but we use the expression, "Your mother is gonna kill you," "She's gonna kill you." So, quite extreme level of anger in casual expressions only. Oh, also, we show the reason for this anger with "for" too. So, "My boss is gonna kill me for making a mistake," "My mother is gonna kill me for making a mess." So, we show the reason with for the "for." |
| The fourth meaning here is to consume something completely. This is often used with drinks. Examples, "We killed three bottles of wine at dinner," "The students killed the keg in an hour?" It's a very, very casual expression that suggests kind of a surprising amount and like I said, it's usually used for drinks. Like you consumed more drinks than you expected like, "Oh, wow. We drank a lot. We killed three bottles of wine at dinner last night? Two of us?" That seems like quite a lot, I think. That's an extreme example. But, to say, "killed something" means you completely finished, everything was gone. So, "to kill a drink" means to finish it completely. |
| Okay, let's take a look at some variations for the verb, "kill." The first one is "to kill time." This means waste time, to waste time. Examples, "I've got about 15 minutes to kill before my next meeting," "We're just killing time until the movie starts." So, yeah, this just means to waste time. So, "I've got 15 minutes to kill," means I've got 15 minutes to waste, I've got 15 minutes to destroy, I have 15 extra minutes, I have no plan for these 15 minutes so I'm going to kill them, just do nothing, waste of time. Second example sentence is the same thing. "Until the movie, we're just killing time," so this is our current status, just wasting time until the movie. |
| The second variation is the expression, "to kill it." This is a very positive and casual expression which means to do something with a high level of skill like sports or entertainment or your job to kill it. Examples, "You're killing it lately." "Serena Williams killed it at the tournament last week." "Killing it" in progressive tense in the first sentence, "You're killing it" means you're doing a great job or you're doing awesome or your work is so great lately. And, it's a very casual but very positive phrase. It's encouraging like, "Wow, you're killing it. Great work." So, it sounds like your level of ability is quite high. In the second example sentence, it's a sport example, "Serena Williams killed it at the tournament last week," means her performance at the tournament in the past was really, really good. She did a fantastic job, she won all her matches, for example, "She killed it" in past tense. |
| The next variation is "to kill off" something or to kill something off, both are okay. This means to destroy something over time. So, it's different from "to kill," like killing something. "To kill a spider," for example is in one moment, one motion maybe. "To kill off" something or "to kill something off" means over a period of time, something is destroyed. Examples, "Big companies are killing off small businesses," "Pollution is killing off sea life." So, both of these examples show destruction or death happening over a period of time. So, maybe not like death of a person or death of an animal but rather like a business goes away or like an environment is destroyed, for example. So, in the first example, "Big companies are killing off small businesses," means big companies are growing bigger and bigger and destroying small businesses over time. In the second example sentence, it's about the environment, "Pollution is killing off sea life gradually," over time, sea life is dying. |
| Alright. So, those are a few, perhaps, new ways to use the verb, "kill." I hope that you found something new and useful. Of course, if you want to try to make a sentence, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let us know in the comment section of this video. Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs and we'll see you again next time. Bye-bye. |
| Okay, now, let's look at some--what? |
| Okay, let's look at-- |
| Okay, let's look at the conjugate--conjugations. Conjugation, okay… |
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