kill off

1. Render extinct, eliminate completely, as in The plague killed off entire villages and towns . [c. 1600]

2. Represent as dead, as in This mystery writer kills off a new victim in almost every chapter . [Mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

Internationalists, by contrast, focus on democratically agreed-upon norms around human rights, while challenging the state’s prerogative to deploy child soldiers, employ child workers or kill off large parts of the population.

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The poison tide had killed off the coastal vegetation, making it the perfect fuel for a wildfire.

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Over the past two years, Israel has systematically killed off or hobbled the leaders of its most-powerful enemies: Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

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The majority of milk drunk in the UK is heat-treated - or pasteurised - to kill off harmful bacteria.

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Her tone in “Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction” is elegiac, as though smartphones have killed off the craft; yet it’s also a manifesto of sorts, and a declaration of her own aesthetics.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• annihilate 
• exterminate 
• obliterate 
• slaughter 
• wipe out