Meaning & use

slain

adjective·Advanced

Killed, especially violently or in battle; the past participle of the verb slay.

See it in a sentence

The monument honors soldiers slain during the long and costly siege.

In the old legend, villagers still speak of the dragon that the hero had slain.

A note on using this word

Slain is used mainly as a past participle in formal, literary, or journalistic writing about violent death, rarely in casual conversation.

Words with a similar meaning

killedmurdered

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

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