perpetrate
verb /ˈpɜːpətreɪt/
/ˈpɜːrpətreɪt/
(formal)Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they perpetrate | /ˈpɜːpətreɪt/ /ˈpɜːrpətreɪt/ |
| he / she / it perpetrates | /ˈpɜːpətreɪts/ /ˈpɜːrpətreɪts/ |
| past simple perpetrated | /ˈpɜːpətreɪtɪd/ /ˈpɜːrpətreɪtɪd/ |
| past participle perpetrated | /ˈpɜːpətreɪtɪd/ /ˈpɜːrpətreɪtɪd/ |
| -ing form perpetrating | /ˈpɜːpətreɪtɪŋ/ /ˈpɜːrpətreɪtɪŋ/ |
- to commit a crime or do something wrong or evil
- perpetrate something to perpetrate a crime/fraud/massacre
- security breaches perpetrated by people working for the company
- perpetrate something against/upon/on somebody violence perpetrated against women and children
Extra ExamplesTopics Crime and punishmentc2- They believed that a crime had been perpetrated against them.
- They were victims of a fraud being perpetrated on companies in search of cash to help them ride the recession.
- We will not tolerate violence perpetrated against women and children.
Oxford Collocations DictionaryPerpetrate is used with these nouns as the object:- act
- atrocity
- crime
- …
Word Originmid 16th cent.: from Latin perpetrat- ‘performed’, from the verb perpetrare, from per- ‘to completion’ + patrare ‘bring about’. In Latin the act perpetrated might be good or bad; in English the verb was first used in the statutes referring to crime, which led to the negative association.