How do you pronounce the word "Kill"?
Asked by
josie (
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March 27th, 2012
When I was in the service, the word “kill” would enter the conversation regularly. I was always interested in the ways that a simple one syllable word could be pronounced. Guys would pronounce the word as kill rhymes with ill, kill rhymes with heel, and kill with two syllables, as in kee-yul.
How do pronounce it.
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34 Answers
I say it like ill or pill.
I say it like pill, but I put too much emphasis on the K and it sounds like “KH-ill.”
There’s a rebbel in every bunch.
Oh Rooooxaaaanne…you don’t have to kill a banana.
@rebbel Interestingly, there was always a guy who had trouble saying it and would substitute a euphemism. Having said it, nobody ever used banana.
Murdalize. For some reason your question reminded me of this word from my childhood. Three Stooges, perhaps? In that case, moidalize.
He-yuh in Tex-us Weeeee sayh it as Keeeeeeeeel.
Y’all.
Aren’t dialects wonderful? On a trip coming back from Alaska, a woman on the train said, “Jalsee buyers?” It took more than a few beats to realize she’d said, “Did you all see bears?” And how do you answer that without sounding critical or overbearing? “Yep.”
One syllable, rhyming with “ill.”
Rhymes with dill and shrill and will and nill and Jill.
These answers are certainly no KILLJOY…..been fun reading them!
Officially we were not allowed to use kill when I was in, at least when referencing an enemy combatant. We had to pronounce it serviced.
One syllable rhyming with ill. I have never heard it pronounced any other way (except when someone is making a very bad attempt at impersonating a foreign accent, as in “I keel you”).
Like ill. But I’ve definitely heard it said with two syllables around here, ke-yull.
Like Achmed the dead terrorist.
Also like pill.
When I hear kee-ul I think of people like this.
I rhyme it with pill and ill and other words like that, but being Southern, I tend to draw all these words out a bit longer than they should be.
@zensky I love that little guy lol. Ah keel yoo!
I don’t know why it took so long to be reminded of this…
Don Francisco, an elegant Mexican gentleman, was about to check into the Holiday Inn in the USA for the first time. In his excitement, he had arrived prior to the normal check-in, time, however, and the desk clerk was attempting to explain that because the maids had not yet finished on his floor, his room was not yet prepared for him. Don Francisco didn’t understand; he just wanted to get in to his room, take a shower and lie down.
The clerk tried again to explain. “The maid. She’s putting sheets on your bed now.”
Don Francisco was outraged. He reached under his jacket and pulled a revolver, leveling it at the terrified clerk. “Leesten, meestah. Eef there’s any sheets on my bed then I keel you.”
@CWOTUS Oh man, that was so bad it’s good. LMAO.
ah’m gonna keel yew boyah.
God, where did I hear this? It’s kɪlli:ŋg me.
I pronounce it the same as ill, pill, dill, mill.
My husband says sill, window sill, sort of seel, even though he says kill, ill, and pill “normally.” He is ESL, but for some reason sill is tough for him. Might be because it follows s?
I always find it very odd when people pronounce the vowels differently in words basically spelled the same except for one the initial consonant in the word. I’m trying to thik of examples where I might do it? Or, when it is correct to do it.
Kind of the ooposite of pronouncing kill as keel, when I lived in MI many people pronounce creek crick.
@fundevogel Laurence Olivier has a line very similar to that in the movie Sleuth, maybe that’s where you heard it.
@ucme I don’t think I’ve seen that, though whatever I’m thinking of might’ve been ripping it off.
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