liquidate
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: business
commerce
commercial
finance
law
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.
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).
Affixes: -ate
Inflected forms:
form: liquidates
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: liquidating
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: liquidated
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: liquidated
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Synonym of liquefy (“to make (something) into a liquid”); to liquidize.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
rare
transitive
examples: The Para rubber is of very fine quality, […] whilst the Ceara, a very inferior quality, often passes through a species of decomposition before arriving in this country, the heat of the ship's hold being sufficient to partially liquidate its substance.
gloss: To make (a sound) less harsh.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
gloss: To use up (money or other assets) wastefully; to dissipate, to squander, to waste.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: A Drunkard is a Creature God ne're made, / The Species Man, the Nature retrograde, / […] / Thoſe damn themſelves to heap an ill-got Store, / Theſe liquidate their VVealth, and covet to be poor.
gloss: 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.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
informal
transitive
examples: State farms in Southern Russia, in the Caucasus and in Siberia, have proved a failure, and a change in policy has been in progress. […] Now the State farms are being liquidated. Several hundred have been broken up and 4,000,000 acres of land distributed among the collective farms. A Riga correspondent says that the collective farmers must pay for the stock, implements, machinery and buildings for which the State allows a few years' credit, "but apparently the land itself is received gratis with the laborers hitherto employed on it, who become additional shareholders of the collective farms to which they are allotted."
The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man, goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. […] Once we killed bad men: now we liquidate unsocial elements.
It seems that this woman had kept a detailed journal of her deep devotion to her woman friend. The problem she posed to Ann [Landers; pseudonym of Eppie Lederer] was: "Should I destroy the journal?" Ann's answer to this question was: "Put a match to it.["] […] Ann assumes that homosexual thoughts and experiences are evil and, if possible, they should be liquidated from consciousness. It is appalling that Ann is allowed to give out such advice!
"The first step in liquidating a people," said [Milan] Hubl, "is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have someone write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster."
gloss: To convert (assets) into cash; to encash, to realize, to redeem.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: 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.
Her only relative was a niece in Boston, who arranged for a local lawyer to liquidate Mrs. Garner’s property.
gloss: To settle (a debt) by paying the outstanding amount; to pay off.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: The excess of the former amount over the latter constitutes of course a debt due by this Company to the banking company, the settlement of which has engaged the earnest attention of the Board. Their wish was to liquidate that amount by the proceeds of sales of property; but the unfavourable state of the colony has prevented their doing more than effecting a reduction of the debt by a payment to account.
Defence could not be merely passive: assistance must be given to Mülhausen to liquidate outstanding debts, while Sigismund [Archduke of Austria] was open to receive offers, within the limits of the treaty of St. Omer, to redeem some or all of the territories he had pledged.
gloss: 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.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
gloss: To make (something) clear and intelligible.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: [T]he King vvas obliged to qualify his grant, by eſtabliſhing betvveen the contending parties a rotation of ſeniority, each to take place alternately for a year, the ſurvivor to precede for his life the heir of the other, and ſo in perpetuum. A ſenſeleſs jumble, ſoon liquidated by a more egregious act of folly, the King vvith his ovvn hand crovvning the young Duke of VVarvvick King of the Iſle of VVight— […]
The beſt ideas vve can obtain of ſuch pains and pleaſures are altogether unliquidated in point of quality. In vvhat other reſpects our ideas of them may be liquidated vvill be conſidered in another place.
It not uncommonly happens, that there are tvvo ſtatutes exiſting at one time, claſhing in vvhole or in part vvith each other, and neither of them containing any repealing clauſe or expreſſion. In ſuch a caſe, it is the province of the courts to liquidate and fix their meaning and operation: So far as they can by any fair conſtruction be reconciled to each other; […]
gloss: To make (something) clear and intelligible.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: [R]eturn to thy maſter, and tell him, e'er vve liquidate our differences by the ſvvord, Manfred vvould hold ſome converſe vvith him.
gloss: To make (something) clear and intelligible.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: All theſe Diſadvantages, vvith many others, vve vvere forced to lay before Sir Richard Steele, and farther to remonſtrate to him, that as he novv ſtood in [William] Collier’s Place, his Penſion of 700l. vvas liable to the ſame Conditions, that Collier had receiv’d it upon; vvhich vvere, that it ſhould be only payable during our being the only Company permitted to act, but in caſe another ſhould be ſet up againſt us, that then this Penſion vvas to be liquidated into an equal Share vvith us; and vvhich vve novv hoped he vvould be contented vvith.
In your laſt letter, of the 7th, you accuſe me, moſt unjuſtly, of being in arrears in my correſpondence; vvhereas, if our epiſtolary accounts vvere fairly liquidated, I believe you vvould be brought in conſiderably debtor.
A debt or demand is liquidated whenever the amount due is agreed on by the parties, or fixed by the operation of law.
gloss: Of a corporation, partnership, or other business: to settle financial affairs with the aim of ceasing operations; to go into liquidation, to wind up.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: COVID-19 hit the company hard—I foresee it will liquidate within a year.
A reverse triangular merger is the same as a triangular merger, except that the subsidiary created by the acquirer merges into the selling entity and then liquidates, leaving the selling entity as the surviving entity, and a subsidiary of the acquirer.
Related words: illiquid
illiquidity
illiquidly
liquefy
liquify
liquid
liquidation
liquidity
liquidizer
liquor
nonliquidation
preliquidation
reliquidation
Derived words: liquidatable
liquidated
liquidated damages
liquidating
liquidator
nonliquidating
preliquidate
reliquidate
self-liquidating
self-liquidator
unliquidatable
unliquidated
unliquidating
Translations: