Committing

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /kəˈmɪtɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The process of executing a particular act or transaction
2. The engagement in a specific course of action or endeavor
3. Carrying out a specific act or behavior as intended

Etymology: "Committing" is the present participle of "commit," and the verb carries a surprisingly literal sense of sending things together. Its Latin ancestor, "committere," combined "com-" meaning "together" with "mittere," "to send," so the earliest idea was of bringing or putting things side by side. From that physical sense came a range of extensions: to join, to compare, to entrust something to someone's care, and to incur or perpetrate a wrong. The word reached English through Middle English "committen," which was borrowed from Latin. The moral sense of doing wrong is the one that dominates today, so "committing" a crime or a deed reads as an act one performs, though the Latin root points to sending or putting something into a particular place or hands. The related word "mission" shares the same "mittere" root, which shows how a single idea of sending could branch into both a dispatched errand and a wrongdoing.

Synonyms: dedicating, engaging, entrusting, allocating, devoting

Antonyms: abandoning, neglecting, withholding, refusing, dismissing