Library / English Dictionary

MURDER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by a human being

Synonyms:

execution; murder; slaying

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("murder" is a kind of...):

homicide (the killing of a human being by another human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "murder"):

thuggee (murder and robbery by thugs)

tyrannicide (killing a tyrant)

shoot-down (murder by shooting someone down in cold blood)

infanticide (murdering an infant)

hit (a murder carried out by an underworld syndicate)

dry-gulching (the act of killing from ambush)

regicide (the act of killing a king)

lynching (putting a person to death by mob action without due process of law)

butchery; carnage; mass murder; massacre; slaughter (the savage and excessive killing of many people)

elimination; liquidation (the murder of a competitor)

filicide (the murder of your own son or daughter)

uxoricide (the murder of a wife by her husband)

fratricide (the murder of your sibling)

mariticide (the murder of a husband by his wife)

parricide (the murder of your own father or mother)

contract killing (a murder carried out on agreement with a hired killer)

bloodshed; gore (the shedding of blood resulting in murder)

assassination (murder of a public figure by surprise attack)

Derivation:

murder (kill intentionally and with premeditation)

murderous (characteristic of or capable of or having a tendency toward killing another human being)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Alter so as to make unrecognizable

Example:

The tourists murdered the French language

Synonyms:

mangle; murder; mutilate

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "murder" is one way to...):

distort; falsify; garble; warp (make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Kill intentionally and with premeditation

Example:

The mafia boss ordered his enemies murdered

Synonyms:

bump off; dispatch; hit; murder; off; polish off; remove; slay

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "murder" is one way to...):

kill (cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "murder"):

burke (murder without leaving a trace on the body)

execute (murder in a planned fashion)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to murder the prisoners

Derivation:

murder (unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by a human being)

murderer (a criminal who commits homicide (who performs the unlawful premeditated killing of another human being))

Credits

 Context examples: 

At Weymouth and at Portland they have murdered and ravished.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I knew that he spoke of his visit to Cliffe Royal at the time of the murder, and I saw by her face that my mother knew it also.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Still, I like Charles—I respect him—I pity him, poor murdered king!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

They carried off their wounded comrade—he was bleedin' like a pig—and then they sat around us, and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in their faces.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For the first time in my life I experienced the desire to murder—“saw red,” as some of our picturesque writers phrase it.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

In a forest of his country lived two giants, who caused great mischief with their robbing, murdering, ravaging, and burning, and no one could approach them without putting himself in danger of death.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

It was battle, murder, and sudden death, leastways—him against six.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

She formally charged Michael Dennin with the murder of Dutchy and Harkey, and the prisoner lay in his bunk and listened to the testimony, first of Hans, and then of Edith.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The Icelandic Sagas tell of Erik the Red: exiled for murder in the late 10th century he fled to southwest Greenland, establishing its first Norse settlement.

(Lost Norse of Greenland fuelled the medieval ivory trade, ancient walrus DNA suggests, University of Cambridge)

That will do him good, and he'll come home in such a tender, penitent state of mind, that I shan't dare to see him, she said, adding, as she went slowly home, feeling as if she had murdered some innocent thing, and buried it under the leaves.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)