executeverb [ T ]
uk/ˈek.sɪ.kjuːt/us/ˈek.sə.kjuːt/execute verb [ T ] (KILL)
C2 to kill someone as a legal punishment:
He was executed for murder.
More examples
- She was condemned to death and executed two weeks later.
- A convicted murderer was executed in North Carolina yesterday.
- Guy Fawkes was executed for treason after he took part in a plot to blow up the British Parliament building.
- Anyone caught trying to escape from the prison camp would be executed on the spot.
- A firing squad was ordered to take the prisoners to a nearby clearing and execute them.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Death penalties
- behead
- burn
- capital punishment
- chair
- condemn
- condemn sb to (do) sth
- condemned
- decapitate
- execution
- executioner
- gallows
- garrotte
- hangman
- hung, drawn, and quartered idiom
- noose
- scaffold
- stake
- stone
- string
- string sb up
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execute verb [ T ] (DO)
C2 formal to do or perform something, especially in a planned way:
to execute a deal/plan
The whole play was executed with great precision.
execute a will specialized
If you execute someone's will, you deal with that person's money, property, etc., according to the instructions in it.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Succeeding, achieving and fulfilling
- accomplish
- achieve
- acquit
- actualize
- attain
- bear
- go places idiom
- go the whole hog idiom
- grade
- groove
- have the last laugh idiom
- have your/its moments idiom
- kill
- rise
- somewhere
- stand out
- streak ahead
- succeed
- sunset
- take hold idiom
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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Inheriting & bequeathing