SLAY


Meaning of SLAY in English

slay /sleɪ/ BrE AmE verb ( past tense slew /sluː/, past participle slain /sleɪn/) [transitive]

[ Language: Old English ; Origin: slean 'to hit, kill' ]

1 . literary to kill someone – used especially in newspapers

2 . American English spoken informal to amuse someone a lot

—slayer noun [countable]

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THESAURUS

▪ kill to make someone die:

The driver and his passenger were killed in the crash.

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He was killed by rival gang members.

▪ murder to deliberately kill someone – used when talking about this as a crime:

He was convicted of murdering his wife.

▪ commit manslaughter to kill someone without intending to – used when talking about this as a crime:

The court ruled that the guard had committed manslaughter.

▪ assassinate to deliberately kill an important person, especially a politician:

He was part of a plot to assassinate Hitler.

▪ slay to kill someone or something in a violent way – used in newspaper reports and also in old stories:

Two teenagers were slain in the shootings.

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St. George slew the dragon.

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The king was slain at the battle of Hastings.

▪ execute formal ( also put somebody to death ) to kill someone as a punishment for a crime:

McVeigh, who killed 168 people in a bombing attack, was executed by lethal injection.

▪ eliminate to kill someone in order to prevent them from causing trouble:

a ruthless dictator who eliminated all his rivals

▪ take somebody out informal to kill someone in order to get rid of them, especially an enemy or someone who is causing trouble for you:

US forces used air strikes to take out the enemy positions.

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One of the other drug dealers may have decided to take him out.

▪ bump somebody off humorous informal to kill someone:

He was so irritating I felt like bumping him off myself.

▪ do away with somebody informal to kill someone:

The settlers in Jamestown had been done away with, but no one knew how.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.      Longman - Словарь современного английского языка.