killed

Killed is the past tense and past participle of the verb kill. It denotes causing death or the occurrence of death as a result of an action, accident, disease, or other factors. In literal usage, it appears in reports of homicide or fatal injury, as in “She was killed in the crash,” and in non-literal uses, such as “The plant was killed by frost.”

Etymology and form: The modern English verb kill comes from Old English cwellan, a Germanic term meaning to strike down or slay. The past tense and past participle are formed with the regular -ed ending, yielding killed, and the same form serves as the past participle in all standard usages.

Usage and distinctions: In legal contexts, killed can refer to a fatal outcome resulting from criminal or non-criminal actions; it is not itself a legal category. The act of killing is described by terms such as killing, homicide, murder, and manslaughter, which specify intent and circumstances. Outside legal contexts, killed can be used metaphorically, for example in expressions like “killed it” to mean performed exceptionally well, or in phrases such as “kill time” or “kill the mood,” which do not involve actual death.

Summary: Killed functions as a versatile grammatical form in English, tied to the concept of causing death while also appearing in a variety of figurative expressions.