liquidate
Meanings
Verb
- get rid of (someone who may be a threat) by killing
- "The mafia liquidated the informer"
- eliminate by paying off (debts)
- convert into cash
- "I had to liquidate my holdings to pay off my ex-husband"
- settle the affairs of by determining the debts and applying the assets to pay them off
- "liquidate a company"
- Synonym of liquefy (“to make (something) into a liquid”); to liquidize.
- To make (a sound) less harsh.
- To use up (money or other assets) wastefully; to dissipate, to squander, to waste.
- To kill (someone), usually violently, and especially for some ideological or political aim; to assassinate, to murder; also, to abolish or eliminate (something); to do away with, to put an end to.
- To convert (assets) into cash; to encash, to realize, to redeem.
- To settle (a debt) by paying the outstanding amount; to pay off.
- To settle the financial affairs of (a corporation, partnership, or other business) with the aim of ceasing operations, by determining liabilities, using assets to pay debts, and apportioning the remaining assets if any; to wind up.
- To make (something) clear and intelligible.
- To resolve or settle (differences, disputes, etc.).
- To make (something) clear and intelligible.
- To ascertain (an amount of money), especially by agreement or through litigation; also, to set out (financial accounts) properly.
- To make (something) clear and intelligible.
- Of a corporation, partnership, or other business: to settle financial affairs with the aim of ceasing operations; to go into liquidation, to wind up.
Adj
- Of an amount of money: ascertained, determined, fixed.
Origin / Etymology
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.
Sense 1.2.3 (“to kill; to abolish or eliminate”) is a semantic loan from Russian ликвиди́ровать (likvidírovatʹ); while sense 1.2.4 and sense 2 (business-related senses) were influenced by French liquider and Italian liquidare, all ultimately from Latin liquidus (see above).
Synonyms
aerosolize, annihilate, atomize, bag, baptize, benothing, bereave of life, bewreck, blight, blot out, blotto, bring down, bump off, bury, cack, compromised to a permanent end, croak, crush, dash, deactivate, dead, decompose, demolish, desolate, destroy, devastate, diffuse, disintegrate, dispatch, disperse, dispose of, dissolve, do, do in, dust, eliminate, end, eradicate, erase, ex, exterminate, extinguish, extirpate, finish, finish off, flatten, fuck, grease, harry, jazz, knock off, lay waste, lay waste to, level, liquefy, liquidate, make away with, mortify, neutralise, neutralize, nuke, obliterate, off, pay off, pick off, polish off, pop off, pull down, pulverize, punch someone's ticket, put an end to, put down, put six feet under, put someone out of their misery, put to sleep, race, ravage, raze, remove, rub out, ruin, scotch, scupper, scuttle, send to eternity, send to hell, send to the grave, send to the great beyond, send to the next life, slaughter, slay, smash, smite, snuff, squash, stamp out, stiff, stop someone's clock, take, take care of, take down, take out, terminate, terminate with extreme prejudice, top, top off, torpedo, total, unbreed, unexist, unmake, uproot, waste, wax, wet, whack, wipe off, wipe out, wreck
Antonyms
Scrabble Score: 19
liquidate is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordliquidate is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
liquidate is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary