Liquidates

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To extinguish debts by either selling off assets or settling obligations, resulting in the conversion of physical resources into cash while ceasing operations
2. To turn assets into cash and pay off debts, effectively concluding financial matters or the existence of a business entity
3. Sells off a company's assets to generate cash for repaying debts and stopping operations

Etymology: Latin "liquidus" meant "fluid" or "clear," and its verb "liquidō" meant to melt something or make it clear. The English verb arrived as a learned borrowing from the Late Latin participle "liquidātus," and its original sense was simply to make something liquid. The idea of clearing a debt came later, from the notion of clearing an account so that only a clear, settled balance remained. Business use developed from that sense of settling and clearing. To liquidate a company was to wind up its affairs and turn its holdings into money to pay creditors. Turning assets into cash is the same operation, so the modern financial meaning follows naturally from the Latin idea of making things flow freely. Much later, the word took on a grim extension. Senses meaning "to kill" or "to abolish" entered English through Russian "likvidirovat'," a semantic loan, and they carry the sense of clearing something away entirely.

Synonyms: dissolves, settles, resolves, clears, eliminates

Antonyms: accumulates, gathers, collects, retains, maintains