kill
v.v. to cause the death of a person, animal, or plant. You can also use it informally to mean stopping a process or making someone laugh very hard.
v. to cause the death of a living organism; to terminate a process or operation in a technical context. Transitive — requires a direct object.
The cold weather might kill the flowers in the garden.
The commander ordered the soldiers to kill the engine so they could approach the camp silently.
From Middle English killen, kyllen, cüllen (“to strike, beat, cut”), of obscure origin. Cognate with Scots kele, keil (“to kill”). Perhaps from unattested Old English cyllan, from Proto-West Germanic kwulljan, from Proto-Germanic kwuljaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to throw, hit, hurt by throwing”). * Or, possibly a variant of Old English cwellan (“to kill, murder, execute”) (see quell). * Or, from Old Norse kolla (“to hit on the head, harm”), related to Norwegian kylla (“to poll”), Middle Dutch kollen (“to knock down”), Icelandic kollur (“top, head”); see also coll, cole). Compare also Saterland Frisian källe (“to hurt”), Middle Dutch kellen (“to kill, hurt”), Middle Low German kellen, killen (“to ache strongly, cause one great pain”) (whence German Low German kellen, killen (“to hurt, injure, torment, vex”)), Middle High German kellen (“to torment; torture”).
Borrowing from Dutch kil, from Middle Dutch kille, from Old Dutch killa, from Proto-West Germanic killjā, from Proto-Germanic *kiljǭ.
The verb is transitive and always takes a direct object.
The poison killed to the pests.The poison killed the pests.Kill is a transitive verb and does not take a preposition before its object.