thrill killer

See also: thrill-killer

English

Alternative forms

• thrill-killer

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Noun

thrill killer (plural thrill killers)

1. (idiomatic) A murderer who is motivated by a strong personal desire to have a very exciting experience.
   • 1954 September 6, “SEQUELS: Another Life”, in Time:

     New York City's teen-aged thrill killer of 1945 was Lena Theresa Nienstedt, a whisky-drinking factory girl of 16. She carried a small hatchet in her handbag.

   • 2011 March 29, Neil Genzlinger, “Farley Granger, Screen Star of the 1950s, Dies at 85”, in New York Times, retrieved 17 May 2013:

     [H]is best-known performances were two of his earliest: as a preppie thrill-killer in Hitchcock’s “Rope” in 1948, and as a tennis player wrongly suspected of murder in “Strangers on a Train” in 1951.

Related terms

• thrill kill