liquidating

Verb

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

1. (archaic, rare, transitive) Synonym of liquefy (“to make (something) into a liquid”); to liquidize.
   • 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.1862 April 2 (date delivered), Frederick Walton, “On the Introduction and Use of Elastic Gums and Analogous Substances”, in Journal of the Society of Arts, […], volume X, number 489, London: […]...

   Synonyms:

   liquefy

2. (figuratively, transitive) To make (a sound) less harsh.
3. (figuratively, transitive) To use up (money or other assets) wastefully; to dissipate, to squander, to waste.
   • 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.1702, [Daniel Defoe], “Part II”, in Reformation of Manners, a Satyr, [London]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 38
4. (figuratively, informal, transitive) 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.
   • 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...1936 October 27, “Liqudating state farms”, in The Daily Colonist, number 272, Victoria, B.C.: The Colonial Printing and Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4, column 2

   Synonyms:

   annihilate, bag, baptize, bereave of life, blight, bring down, bump off, bury, cack, compromised to a permanent end

   Antonyms:

   bring forth, cause, contrive, create, ferment, forge, develop, engender, evolve, generate

5. (figuratively, transitive) To convert (assets) into cash; to encash, to realize, to redeem.
   • 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 1938.1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 161
6. (figuratively, transitive) To settle (a debt) by paying the outstanding amount; to pay off.
   • 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...1844 June 29, “Summary of the Eighth Report of the South Australian Company”, in The Colonial Gazette: A Weekly Journal, volume VI, number 292, London: William Holme […], →OCLC, page 413, column 2

See all 12 meanings of liquidate