Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to mercy kill

to mercy kill

8.6
Cause a person or animal to die without pain to stop suffering
  • phrasal verb
  • NSFW
translation icon : eutanasia
  • The veterinarian decided to mercy kill the horse to end its suffering.

Examples

  • Don't mercy kill the dog!

  • He made the difficult decision to mercy kill his dog after it was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

  • Some animal shelters are forced to mercy kill severely ill pets.

  • The vet decided to mercy kill the suffering dog.

  • The veterinarian decided to mercy kill the suffering dog to spare it further pain.

  • In some cases, families choose to mercy kill their pets to prevent prolonged suffering.

  • Due to the painful condition, the doctor had to mercy kill the terminally ill patient.

Synonyms

to put to sleep
vsto mercy kill
  • NSFW
25 5.8

Kill a sick or very old animal to stop its pain

is limited to animals and specifies killing by a drug
to euthanize
vsto mercy kill
  • Specialized
22 8.5

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

has identical meaning but is an alternative written form
to euthanatize
vsto mercy kill
  • Specialized
9.9

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

has identical meaning but is an alternative written form

Surface Forms

mercy kill infinitive
mercy killed past
mercy killed past participle
mercy killing present participle
mercy kills third person singular

Morphology

mercy + kill

The meaning is directly compositional: 'mercy' (compassion) combined with 'kill' (cause death) yields 'to kill out of compassion to relieve suffering.' This is a transparent, predictable combination (often expressed as 'mercy killing' or 'to mercy‑kill') and similar concepts exist cross‑linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both words should infer the meaning.

Etymology

Mercy kill comes from the idea of showing mercy by choosing to kill an animal or person so their pain ends. So it means 'to cause a painless death to end suffering'.