liquidate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin liquidātus, the past participle of liquidō (“to melt, make liquid; to make clear, clarify”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} from Latin liquidus (“fluid, liquid; clear”), the source of liquid.^[2][7][4][3] Etymonline, Klein, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English call the Latin verb medieval.^{[2][8][9][10]} Barnhart thinks the borrowing perhaps owed something to Middle French liquider,^[3] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English trace the financial senses to Italian liquidare and the French verb.^[9][10] The sense "to wipe out, kill" follows Russian ликвидировать (likvidirovatʹ),^{[7][9][10][1]} itself ultimately from the Latin verb;^[2] Etymonline and Barnhart give this as possible.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To determine and apportion by agreement or by litigation; to set out accounts clearly: about 1575, in Balfour's Practicks, a sense the OED marks obsolete after 1798.^[7][3][2] Merriam-Webster also dates the word about 1575, for fixing the exact amount of a debt or damages,^[5] and Dictionary.com 1565–75.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Early uses kept the idea of making clear: to clear away objections from 1620, and to make plain or settle disputes from before 1670 to 1781.^[7] The sense "to pay off a debt" is first recorded in Johnson's Dictionary (1755),^[7][3][2] which defined it as "to clear away; to lessen debts".^[11] The literal Latin sense "to melt" appeared in Blount's Glossographia (1656) but stayed rare, and Defoe used the verb in 1702 for "to waste, dissipate".^[7] In commerce, a firm was said to liquidate, go into liquidation, from 1870, and to liquidate a company, to settle its debts and share out its assets, from 1883;^[7] Barnhart notes that this sense is also Italian, which suggested a borrowing from that language.^[3] The sense "to do away with, kill" appeared in 1924, in the Yale Review,^[7][2][3] and Dictionary.com dates it 1920–25.^[6] American slang used it for "to have a drink" (1881) and "to pay up" (1884).^[12][7] An adjective liquidate, of a debt fixed in amount, is recorded from 1609 and survives only in Scots law.^[7][9]

Timeline

• c. 1575 – to determine and set out accounts clearly (obsolete by 1798).^[7][3]
• 1609 – adjective, of a sum, ascertained and fixed in amount.^[7]
• 1620 – to clear away objections (rare).^[7]
• 1656 – to melt, liquefy (rare).^[7]
• 1702 – figurative, to waste, dissipate.^[7]
• 1755 – to pay off a debt.^[7][3][2]
• 1870 – intransitive, of a firm, to go into liquidation.^[7]
• 1881 – American slang, to have a drink.^[12]
• 1883 – to wind up a company.^[7]
• 1924 – to do away with, wipe out, kill.^[7][2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To settle or pay off a debt or claim.^[13][5][4]
2. To fix the exact amount of a debt or of damages, by agreement or in court.^[13][5]
3. To wind up a business by settling its liabilities and sharing out its assets; of a firm, to close down in this way: The company was liquidated after it failed to repay its lenders.^[13][5][7]
4. To convert assets into cash.^[13][4]
5. To get rid of; to kill, especially by violence: The regime liquidated its rivals one by one.^[13][4][7]

Word family

• liquidation
• liquidator
• nonliquidating
• preliquidate
• reliquidate
• self-liquidating
• unliquidated
• unliquidating

Related words

• illiquid
• liquefy
• liquify
• liquid
• liquidity
• liquor

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins