To Knock Over
To Bring Down, To Defeat
transitive verb, godan verb
This word consists of kanji with hiragana attached. Because the hiragana ends with an う sound, you know this word is a verb.
The kanji itself means overthrow or collapse, and this is a transitive verb (like most verbs ending in す) related to those actions. It means to knock over, to bring down, or to defeat.
It can be used to talk about physically knocking something over, as well as bringing something or someone down, like a government, or defeating someone, like an enemy.
Since this word consists of a kanji with hiragana attached, you can bet that it will use the kun'yomi reading. You didn't learn that reading with this kanji, so here's a mnemonic to help you:
If you want to knock over something, you'll have to go to town (たお) on it. You'll never be able to knock down anything if all your efforts are perfunctory. You really gotta go to town on that thing!
やばい、このクッパ強すぎる。誰か倒す方法知ってたら、教えて！
Man, this Bowser is too strong. If you know how to defeat him, please tell me!
その本の山は、一つ倒すとドミノ倒しのように全部くずれ落ちてきてしまいました。
The stack of books collapsed like dominoes when I knocked over one.
山で木を切り倒す手伝いをしていた時、チェーンソーが首に当たって、大ケガをしたんです。
While helping to cut down trees in the mountains, I was hit by a chainsaw on the neck and got seriously injured.