GNU Emacs Manual - Other Kill Commands

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### Other Kill Commands

`C-w`
  Kill region (from point to the mark) (`kill-region`).
`M-d`
  Kill word (`kill-word`). See section Words.
`M-`DEL``
  Kill word backwards (`backward-kill-word`).
`C-x `DEL``
  Kill back to beginning of sentence (`backward-kill-sentence`). See section Sentences.
`M-k`
  Kill to end of sentence (`kill-sentence`).
`C-M-k`
  Kill sexp (`kill-sexp`). See section Lists and Sexps.
`M-z char`
  Kill through the next occurrence of char (`zap-to-char`).

A kill command which is very general is `C-w` (`kill-region`), which kills everything between point and the mark. With this command, you can kill any contiguous sequence of characters, if you first set the region around them.

A convenient way of killing is combined with searching: `M-z` (`zap-to-char`) reads a character and kills from point up to (and including) the next occurrence of that character in the buffer. A numeric argument acts as a repeat count. A negative argument means to search backward and kill text before point.

Other syntactic units can be killed: words, with `M-`DEL`` and `M-d` (see section Words); sexps, with `C-M-k` (see section Lists and Sexps); and sentences, with `C-x `DEL`` and `M-k` (see section Sentences).

You can use kill commands in read-only buffers. They don't actually change the buffer, and they beep to warn you of that, but they do copy the text you tried to kill into the kill ring, so you can yank it into other buffers. Most of the kill commands move point across the text they copy in this way, so that successive kill commands build up a single kill ring entry as usual.

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