Search for a process called {searchterm} and kill it if it exists

gistfile1.sh

#!/bin/bash

# The secret is to use the word boundary in the regex so it doesn't
# return the grep process too.
# Then use awk to extricate the second column of the match.
# Capture that as $PID and kill -9 it (if it exists).

PID=`ps auxww | grep -E "\\bsearchterm" | awk '{ print $2 }'`

if [ $PID ]; then
   kill -9 $PID
fi

exit 0