: to shoot a gun with the purpose of killing someone
Examples of shoot to kill in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the WebAnd even when the distressed person threatens them with a weapon, police don’t always shoot to kill; in the case of Faisal, an officer fired only after a nonlethal sponge round failed to slow him.—Laura Crimaldi, BostonGlobe.com, 3 June 2023 Another military intervention by Moscow in another former Soviet state with clear echoes of the Cold War. Bolstered by the Kremlin, the president's regained a fragile control, ordering his forces to shoot to kill.—ABC News, 9 Jan. 2022 The act grants soldiers wide-ranging powers to search, detain, arrest or shoot to kill people and gives them immunity from prosecution unless the government makes an exception, which rarely occurs.—Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2021 Shoot to kill, see an antifa, shoot to kill.—Dallas News, 12 Oct. 2022 They are trained to shoot to kill.—Alaa Elassar, CNN, 7 July 2022 But now, primarily through crowdsourcing, human rights groups and activists are beginning to document a reign of terror that got underway well before the shoot to kill order.—New York Times, 31 Jan. 2022 The order now are shoot to kill.—ABC News, 9 Jan. 2022 Those stories, including a recent piece on why the police shoot to kill, not wound, can be found at sltrib.com/shotsfired.—Matt Canham, The Salt Lake Tribune, 16 Nov. 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shoot to kill.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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