Execute

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈɛksɪˌkjuːt/

Definitions

1. To perform or accomplish a task, plan, or command, or to carry out a legal death sentence
2. To carry out a designated action, strategy, or directive, or to administer capital punishment as authorized by law
3. To carry through a task or plan to completion ; to cause a person to suffer death as ordered by law

Etymology: The verb "execute" carries a grim original meaning: to follow something through to its end, and in Latin that end was often a punishment. The Latin "exsequor" combined "ex-" ("out") with "sequor" ("to follow"), so it literally meant to follow out to the finish. Its past participle "exsecutus" passed into Old French as "executer," and English borrowed the verb from there. Because the word was tied so closely to carrying out a sentence, "execute" first sounded like "put a condemned person to death" before it meant "complete a plan." The broader sense of finishing or performing a task grew out of that idea of seeing something through, so the modern meaning of carrying out a task is the older sense generalized from punishment to any undertaking.

Synonyms: perform, carry out, implement, enforce, achieve

Antonyms: neglect, abandon, fail, omit, ignore