to put a final end to someone or something: to destroy, exterminate, wipe out
This verb is about finality. It does not describe wounding or damaging something but bringing a person, a people, or a life to a decisive and total end. In the Psalms it is overwhelmingly a word of judgment: God puts an end to the wicked, or the one praying asks God to put an end to enemies who would otherwise put an end to him.
A handful of times the action runs the other way, and something is brought to an end rather than doing the ending. Desert streams "vanish" when the heat comes, and a sufferer speaks of his life being cut off in a pit. The difference is only active versus passive; the core idea of a complete stop stays the same.
Because the word names the result (a definitive end) rather than the manner of it, it sits close to several other strong verbs. It overlaps with שָׁמַד, which stresses wiping out a whole group, with כָּרַת, the ordinary word for cutting off, and with כָּלָה, which pictures something used up until it is finished. What sets this verb apart is its narrow focus on a final, total stop, with nothing left over.