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Glite Dictionary
to put out of someone's misery

to put out of someone's misery

7.3
To stop someone's suffering or worry, sometimes by ending their life
  • phrasal verb
  • NSFW
translation icon : liberar de su sufrimiento
  • The doctor had to put out of her misery the injured horse that was in pain.

Examples

  • And look at her now, nothing but a weak, broken, delusional little girl who doesn't even have the guts to help put her sick child out of it's misery!

    Bang Bang Baby (2014)

  • When the movie was so bad, I wished someone would put me out of my misery and turn it off.

  • The kind nurse decided to put out of his misery the patient who was suffering greatly.

Synonyms

to put down
vsto put out of someone's misery
94 5.5

To kill an animal to stop its suffering

also covers nonfatal relief as an alternative to ending life
to put to death
vsto put out of someone's misery
  • Offensive
46 7.6

To kill someone as a legal punishment

focuses on ending suffering or offering relief rather than punishment
to put to sleep
vsto put out of someone's misery
  • NSFW
25 5.8

Kill a sick or very old animal to stop its pain

can apply to ending suffering in people or by nonlethal relief
to euthanize
vsto put out of someone's misery
  • Specialized
22 8.5

Causing a person or animal to die without pain to stop suffering

also can mean ending suffering by relief rather than death
to put away
vsto put out of someone's misery
3 7.7

To end an animal's life to stop its suffering

is broader including relief without necessarily ending life
to euthanatize
vsto put out of someone's misery
  • Specialized
9.9

To cause a painless death to stop a person or animal from suffering

is the same act but spelled in an alternative form

How Relieved

to put out of someone's misery
  • NSFW
7.3
to relieve
166 2.3
to alleviate
76 5.3
to ease
305 2.1
to console
40 3.9

Surface Forms

put out of someone's misery infinitive
put out of someone's misery past
put out of someone's misery past participle
putting out of someone's misery present participle
puts out of someone's misery third person singular

Morphology

put + out + of + someone's + misery

The meaning is directly built from 'put' (bring/place), 'out of' (remove from) and 'misery' (suffering), so a learner who knows the constituents can infer 'remove someone from suffering' — i.e. relieve their distress. The figurative extensions (ending suspense or, more extreme, euthanasia) are predictable variations of 'relieve/remove from suffering' and this pattern is common cross-linguistically, making the expression transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

The idiom put out of someone's misery comes from the simple, literal idea of stopping pain: imagine a vet who puts out a sick animal's misery by ending its suffering. That's why today it means 'to end someone's suffering' and also, more gently, 'to relieve someone's anxious waiting' by giving them the answer.