liquidation

Noun

liquidation (countable and uncountable, plural liquidations)

1. The act of exchange of an asset of lesser liquidity with a more liquid one, such as cash.
2. The action or process of winding up the affairs of a company, etc.; the selling of the assets of a business as part of the process of dissolving the business.
   • The store is having a liquidation sale: everything must go as they go out of business.
   • And, in a sign of how wide the property crash is, the latest item to turn up in liquidation sales in Dublin is a job lot of 15 cranes, including a pair towering over Anglo Irish Bank's half-built headquarters in the city's docklands.2011 February 21, Lisa O’Carroll, “Hundreds of repossessed homes in Ireland to be sold by auction”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC
3. The clearing off or settling of a debt.
   • Their compenſation becomes part of the national debt, for the liquidation of which there is the one exhautſtleſs fund.1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page...
   • [A] money-box was kept on the kitchen mantelshelf, into which it was publicly made known that all my earnings were dropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I had no hope of any personal participation in the...1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter VII, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 90
4. (euphemistic) The action or process of abolishing or eliminating; the murder of dehumanized victims.
   • Near-synonyms: devitalization, fatality; see also Thesaurus:death, Thesaurus:killing
   • When Stalinists spoke of the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, they intentionally created ambiguity regarding reeducation versus murder.

   Synonyms:

   devitalization, fatality, death, end, tomb, celestial transfer, decease, decomposition, defunction, dematerialization

5. The partial clearing of the board, by an exchange of pieces, to obtain an obviously winning position.
   • The liquidation with 31 Qd2 Rd2 put [Viktor] Korchnoi into a lost ending, but nothing else would have rescued him either.1991 July 30, Robert Byrne, “Chess”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 May 2015
   • 20 a4 e4 21 Rfd1 Rd8 22 Bf1! Forcing an extremely favourable liquidation.2007 October 14, Jonathan Speelman, “Speelman on Chess”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC
6. (rare) The action or fact of partaking of an alcoholic drink.
   • As regards liquidation, champagne, which, except at the tables of the wealthy, was never seen, for it was a guinea a bottle, is now almost as vin ordinaire.1889, F[rederick] E[dward] Gretton, “Time’s Changes—Changes in School-Training”, in Memory’s Harkback through Half-a-Century, 1808 to 1858, London: Richard Bentley and Son […], →OCLC, page 311
   • His desire for liquidation was expressed so heartily that I went with him to a café down the street where we had some vile vermouth and bitters.1909 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Phoebe”, in Roads of Destiny, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 106