slaying

Pluralslayings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of killing, especially the murder of a human being.

   The slaying of the diplomat triggered an international crisis.

   Detectives soon linked the slaying to a long-running gang feud.

   Similarkilling, murder, homicide

   Note

   A noun that works both as a count word and as a mass word. Countable, it names a single killing as an event: a slaying, a series of slayings. Uncountable, it names the act itself, usually followed by of and the victim, as in the slaying of the activist. That of-phrase separates it from the verb's -ing form, which takes its victim directly: slaying the tyrant.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of slay.

   The knight spent the long night slaying the monsters that guarded the gate.

   Slaying the tyrant became the rebels' single obsession.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of slay, not only the literary one of killing. Used without an object, it is slang for excelling: a performer who is slaying is triumphing, not harming anyone. With an object it can also mean beating a rival or leaving an audience helpless with laughter. As a gerund it overlaps with the noun for a killing, which alone takes a plural.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2