mercy killing
7
6.3
- noun
- /ˈmɜrsi ˈkɪlɪŋ/
- NSFW
:
eutanasia
- He called it a mercy killing.
- mercy killing or euthanasia
- perform a mercy killing
The thing that might contradict that is that if you're in a place of this is a mercy killing, I'm going to kill her.
- The thing that might contradict that is that if you're in a place of this is a mercy killing, I'm going to kill her.
Examples
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So I'd call it a mercy killing.
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It'll be a mercy killing, really.
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Do you believe in mercy killing?
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And this is what you call a mercy killing.
Fiction book (1993) -
It would be a mercy killing.
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It was a mercy killing.
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That's what I call a mercy killing.
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It was a mercy killing.
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He was severely dehydrated and comatose, so one could say that the men engaged in an act of euthanasia or mercy killing.
Blog text (26) -
The veterinarian performed a mercy killing to relieve the suffering of the terminally ill dog.
Synonyms
37
7.5
To cause a painless death for a dying person to end their suffering
How Final
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the act of killing someone to relieve suffering' is directly derivable from combining 'mercy' (compassion) with 'killing' (the act of killing) — i.e. killing motivated by compassion. This is a regular noun+noun composition and similar logic exists in many languages, so a B1 learner who knows both words would likely infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Mercy killing comes from the idea of showing mercy, or kindness to someone in great pain, by doing the killing that ends their suffering. So it means 'the act of killing someone without pain to end their great suffering'.