Link Centre Dictionary

liquidate

li·qui·date

UK/ˈlɪkwɪdeɪt/ US/ˈlɪkwəˌdeɪt/ uncommon archaic informal obsolete rare

verb

1.

get rid of (someone who may be a threat) by killing

  • “The mafia liquidated the informer”
  • “the double agent was neutralized”
Synonyms
2.

eliminate by paying off (debts)

Synonyms
3.

convert into cash

  • “I had to liquidate my holdings to pay off my ex-husband”
4.

settle the affairs of by determining the debts and applying the assets to pay them off

  • “liquidate a company”

Origin

Learned borrowing from Late Latin liquidātus (“liquid; clear”, adjective) + English -ate (suffix forming verbs, and forming adjectives with the sense ‘characterized by [the specified things]’). Liquidātus is the perfect passive participle of liquidō (“to turn into a liquid, melt; to make clear”), from Latin liquidus (“fluid, liquid; clear, transparent”) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs); while liquidus is from liqueō (“to be fluid or liquid; to be clear or transparent”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wleykʷ- (“to make wet; moist”)) + -idus (suffix meaning ‘tending to’ forming adjectives). By surface analysis, liquid (adjective) + -ate. Verb sense 1.2.3 (“to kill; to abolish or eliminate”) is a semantic loan from Russian ликвиди́ровать (likvidírovatʹ); while verb sense 1.2.4 and verb sense 2 (business-related senses) were influenced by French liquider and Italian liquidare, all ultimately from Latin liquidus (see above).

Phrases

  • liquidated damages

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.