Etymograph

English

liquidate

Liquidate comes from Late Latin liquidātus ‘liquid’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *wleykʷ- ‘moist, to wet’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*wleykʷ-1‘moist, to wet’root named by Wiktionary
  2. Late Latinc. 200–600 CEliquidātus1‘liquid’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1702liquidate1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English liquidate
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1702, Daniel Defoe, Part II: “A Drunkard is a Creature God ne're made, /…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*wleykʷ-Wiktionary, English liquidate‘moist, to wet’root named by Wiktionary
  2. Late Latinc. 200–600 CEliquidātusWiktionary, English liquidate‘liquid’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1702liquidateWiktionary, English liquidate. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1702, Daniel Defoe, Part II: “A Drunkard is a Creature God ne're made, /…”

Equivalent to liquid + -ate

Latin liqueō ‘to be liquid’

Latin liquidus ‘fluid’

Old French liquide

Middle English liquide

English liquid

The story

Learned borrowing from Late Latin liquidātus (“liquid; clear”, adjective) + English -ate (suffix forming verbs, and forming adjectives with the sense ‘characterized by [the specified things]’). Liquidātus is the perfect passive participle of liquidō (‘to turn into a liquid, melt; to make clear’), from Latin liquidus (‘fluid, liquid; clear, transparent’) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs); while liquidus is from liqueō (‘to be fluid or liquid; to be clear or transparent’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wleykʷ- (‘to make wet; moist’)) + -idus (suffix meaning ‘tending to’ forming adjectives). Verb sense 1.2.3 (‘to kill; to abolish or eliminate’) is a semantic loan from Russian ликвиди́ровать (likvidírovatʹ); while verb sense 1.2.4 and verb sense 2 (business-related senses) were influenced by French liquider and Italian liquidare, all ultimately from Latin liquidus (see above).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Proto-Indo-European *wleykʷ-

Today it means

verb Synonym of liquefy (“to make (something) into a liquid”); to liquidize.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “liquidate”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *wleykʷ- / liquidate

Shirt and support for this word