liquidate

From Medieval Latin liquidatus (“liquid, clear”), past participle of liquidare. The sense “to kill, do away with” is a semantic loan from Russian ликвиди́ровать (likvidírovatʹ), ultimately from Latin liquidus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪkwədeɪt/, /ˈlɪkwɪdeɪt/

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liquidate (third-person singular simple present liquidates, present participle liquidating, simple past and past participle liquidated)

1. (transitive) To settle (a debt) by paying the outstanding amount.
   • 1779, William Coxe, Sketches of the Natural, Political and Civil State of Switzerland

     Friburg was ceded to Zurich by Sigismund to liquidate a debt of a thousand florins.

2. (transitive) To settle the affairs of (a company), by using its assets to pay its debts.
3. (transitive) To convert (assets) into cash; to redeem.
   • 2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 59:

     Her only relative was a niece in Boston, who arranged for a local lawyer to liquidate Mrs. Garner’s property.

4. (law, transitive) To determine by agreement or by litigation the precise amount of (indebtedness); to make the amount of (a debt) clear and certain.
   • 1851,Hargroves v. Cooke, 15th Georgia Reports 321

     A debt or demand is liquidated whenever the amount due is agreed on by the parties, or fixed by the operation of law.

   • February 27, 1759, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, letter to his son (letter CXXVIII)

     If our epistolary accounts were fairly liquidated, I believe you would be brought in considerably debtor.

5. (transitive) To do away with.
   • 1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 161:

     How far progress has been made in liquidating the locomotive stock of the old companies may be judged from the shrinkage in their numbers, by some 50 per cent. at the end of 1931, to about 35 per cent. in 1938.

6. (transitive) To kill.
7. (obsolete, transitive) To make clear and intelligible.
   • 1788, Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. LXXXII

     Time only can liquidate the meaning of all parts of a compound system.

8. (obsolete, transitive) To make liquid.

• (to settle the affairs): conclude
• (to kill): Thesaurus:kill

• liquidation
• liquidator

• liquefy
• liquid
• liquidity
• liquidizer
• liquify
• liquor

• qualitied

• IPA^(key): /li.kwiˈda.te/
• Rhymes: -ate
• Hyphenation: li‧qui‧dà‧te

liquidate

1. inflection of liquidare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

liquidate f pl

1. feminine plural of liquidato