kill

kill vb Kill, slay, murder, assassinate, dispatch, execute are comparable when meaning to deprive of life or to put to death.

Kill is so general that it merely states the fact and does not, except in special phrases (as "Thou shalt not kill"), suggest human agency or the means of death or the conditions attending the putting to death. Also, the object of the action may be not only a person or other living thing but also an inanimate or immaterial thing with qualities suggestive of life

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kill snails in the garden

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a boy killed by a fall

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vegetation killed by frost

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the president killed the project when he vetoed the bill making an appropriation for it

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kill a friend's love by indifference

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he believed at that time that the League of Nations was going to kill war, that the Labour Party were going to kill industrial inequity— Rose Macaulay

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Slay implies killing by force or in wantonness; it is rare in spoken English, but it often occurs in written English where it may convey a dramatic quality whether in poetic or elevated writing or in journalese

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though he slay me, yet will I trust in him— Job 13:15

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the slain man has not yet been identified

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In its extended uses slay usually suggests wanton or deliberate destruction or annihilation

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to slay the reverence living in the minds of men— Shelley

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never had she greatly loved before; never would she greatly love again; and the great love she now had she was slaying— Rose Macaulay

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Murder definitely implies a motive and, often, premeditation and imputes to the act a criminal character; it is the exact word to use in reference to one person killing another either in passion or in cold blood

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Macbeth murdered Duncan

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Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in his own cathedral

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It is sometimes used in place of kill as more expressive or in place of slay as more brutally direct and condemnatory, both in literal and extended use

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Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more— Shak.

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the language of strategy and politics is designed ... to make it appear as though wars were not fought by individuals drilled to murder one another in cold blood— Huxley

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Assassinate implies murder especially of a person in governmental or political power by stealth or treachery and often by an agent or hireling of an opposition. It usually suggests an attempt to get rid of a person who is believed to be an obstacle to the safety of a tyrant, the welfare of a people, the liberty of a nation, or the success of a design

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Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday

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at least two attempts were made to assassinate William of Orange

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Dispatch also suggests an attempt to get rid of a person by killing him, but it is far more colorless than assassinate

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and the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords— Ezek 23:47

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Because it nearly always implies taking direct means of killing (as by shooting or stabbing) and so sometimes connotes expedition or speed in killing or in ending suffering, it is applicable, as most of the other terms are not, to killing (as of a sick or injured animal) for humane reasons

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the policeman dispatched the rabid dog with a single shot

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Often dispatch is merely a euphemism for another of the terms of this group when quick killing or a sudden end is implied

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reached up, caught Wright by the coat, . . . and at one stab dispatched him— Amer. Guide Series: La.

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Execute is the term for putting to death one who has been condemned to such a fate by a legal or military process, or sometimes by summary action of a group

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execute a convicted assassin

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