Kill
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- This article is about the act of ending a living being's life. For other meanings, see Kill (disambiguation) or Killing (disambiguation)
To kill, or killing means to extinguish the life and hence cause the death of a living organism.
The act of killing an animal or plant life form can be said to have occurred when an outside force, usually another life form, has done something to cause it to die. This may be a result of several actions:
- a deliberate action such as war
- in the case of animals, slaughter; see slaughterhouse
- the result of a criminal act, the action or fault of another human being, see homicide and murder
- the results of an accident, such as a car crash. See negligent homicide
- an organism consuming another organism
[edit] Synonyms
The words kill, murder, execution and assassination all signify acts which deprive of life.
- The concept of killing is the most general of the four, with no implication of the manner, justification, or purpose of killing, or nature of what is killed, whether human being, animal, plant, or other object considered to possess life.
- To murder is to kill either immorally, unjustly and without proper reason, or with premeditated intent.
- To execute is to kill a person marked for death by the state, in a manner sanctioned by that state, whether by law or decree.
- To assassinate is to kill a person marked for death, usually with the intent of furthering ideological or political goals.
