liquidation

plural liquidations

1. The act or process of liquidating or of being liquidated.
   1. countableuncountablebusinessThe act or process of winding up the affairs of a company; 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.

      1 more example

      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

   2. countableuncountablebusinessThe 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 182

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      [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 treasure.

      1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter VII, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 90

      Gilles Postel-Vinay has calculated that the increased peasant debt of the 1930s was lighter than that of the previous agricultural depression of the 1880s because the wartime profits and inflation of 1914–18 had permitted the liquidation of previous debt.

      1997, Robert O[wen] Paxton, “The Depression”, in French Peasant Fascism: Henry Dorgères’s Greenshirts and the Crises of French Agriculture, 1929–1939, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, chapter 1 (The Triple Crisis of the French Peasantry, 1929–39), page 14

   3. countableeuphemisticuncountableThe act or process of abolishing or eliminating; the murder of dehumanized victims.

      Near-synonyms: devitalization, fatality; see also Thesaurus:death, Thesaurus:killing

      3 more examples

      When Stalinists spoke of the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, they intentionally created ambiguity regarding reeducation versus murder.

      History is liquidating liberalism and preparing for the liquidation of pseudo-labor pacifism for the very purpose of recreating Chartism on new, incomparably higher historical foundations.

      1925, Leon Trotsky, anonymous translator, “Two Traditions: The Great Rebellion and Chartism”, in Whither England?, New York, N.Y.: International Publishers, →OCLC, page 145

      [T]he Russians themselves, as her picture shows, took starvation almost as a matter of course, just as they, and she, take as a matter of course the liquidation of unfortunate individuals with contra-revolutionary idealogies.

      1932 January 2, The Week-end Review, volume V, London: The Week-end Review, Ltd., →OCLC, page 24, column 1

      Synonyms: devitalization, fatality, death, end, tomb, celestial transfer, decease, decomposition

2. countableuncountableboard gamesThe partial clearing of the board, by an exchange of pieces, to obtain an obviously winning position.

   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

   2 more examples

   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

   Ding initiates the pawn exchange (19 cxb5 axb5). A couple more material exchanges follow with 20 Nf4 exf4 21 Bxc6 Bxb2 22 Qxb2 Rb8. The position is looking drawish after the abrupt liquidation.

   2024 December 12, Bryan Armen Graham, “Gukesh Dommaraju defeats Ding Liren in World Chess Championship Game 14 – live updates”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 Dec 2024

3. countablerareuncountableThe action or fact of partaking of an alcoholic drink.

   The only liquidation I will be enjoying will be the alcoholic type.

   2000 April 13, Diamond Dan, “Falkirk Slum Dwellers”, in scot.sports.soccer (Usenet), archived from the original on 02 Aug 2026

   2 more examples

   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