putting to death
1
8.4
- noun
- NSFW
:
ejecución
- Despite efforts to promote adoption, thousands of stray dogs are still put to death each year.
- dogs putting to death
Examples
-
In twenty-nine of these, it denotes 'putting to death' as a penalty.
Academic text (1991) -
Elizabeth was not put to death.
Fiction book (2000) -
Burke listened to the screams of the last two raiders, whom Ord and Reisz were busy putting to death, then said, "I feel as if I can barely breathe in this heat."
Fiction book (1992) -
Otherwise we would still be owning slaves, subjugating women, discriminating against homosexuals, stoning adulterers, and putting to death children who disobey their parents.
Blog text (26) -
In many parts of the country, the humane society must resort to putting to death animals that cannot be adopted.
-
The controversial law allows for putting to death animals that are deemed dangerous or unfit for adoption.
Synonyms
∞
1.3
An act that causes a person or animal to stop living
690
4.1
An act that causes a person or animal to die
361
6.5
Putting a person to death as punishment for a crime
349
4.4
The act of causing the death of a person or animal often in fighting
305
4.1
A legal punishment in which a person is killed for a very serious crime
48
4.2
The legal killing of someone by the government for a serious crime
37
7.5
To cause a painless death for a dying person to end their suffering
30
7.4
An illegal killing of a person planned in advance
30
9.9
A killing by a group of people without a trial, often by hanging
25
8.6
Killing someone by cutting off their head
24
9.9
Killing a person by setting them on fire as punishment
23
7.3
Killing a person by putting a rope around their neck so they cannot breathe, usually as punishment
10
9.9
A punishment where people throw stones at a person and can kill them
7
6.3
Ending a person's life to stop their pain when they are very ill
5
8.6
To press someone's throat so they cannot breathe
5
9.9
A way of killing someone by tying them to a post and setting them on fire as punishment
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the act of causing someone to die' is directly compositional from 'put' (to cause or bring into a state) + 'death', with 'to' marking the resultant state, so the overall sense is literally 'putting (someone) to death' = causing death. This is a common resultative/causative construction in English (and parallels exist in many languages), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Putting to death comes from a plain, literal image: the word putting means placing someone into a place or state to death, for example sending a prisoner to be killed or placing a sick animal on a table to be killed. So putting to death means 'causing someone or something to die', whether as punishment or to end suffering.