Liquidation

How to spell liquidation

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce liquidation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does liquidation mean?

1. nounThe process of closing a company by selling its assets to pay off its debts.
2. nounThe sale of goods at very low prices, often to clear stock or raise cash quickly.

Liquidation in a sentence

• The failing retailer went into liquidation after months of losses.

• The warehouse held a liquidation sale to clear last season's inventory.

• Creditors received only part of what they were owed once the liquidation was complete.

• Shoppers queued for the closing-down liquidation on the final weekend.

Where does liquidation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb liquere, meaning 'to be fluid' or 'to be clear', the same root that gives us 'liquid' and 'liquor'. From it came the later Latin liquidare, 'to make clear or to melt', which in medieval and legal usage came to mean 'to make a debt or account clear by settling it'. English absorbed this financial sense, and by the early 1700s 'liquidate' meant to clear up or settle accounts, with 'liquidation' as the noun for that process. The idea is that assets are turned into ready cash, made 'liquid' so debts can be paid and the books cleared. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: the 'qu' followed by an 'i', then the schwa of the '-da-' before the firmly stressed '-da-tion', so writers must remember it is liqu-i-da-tion and not 'liquidization'.

How the word is built

• liqu- (from Latin liquere: to be fluid)
• -id (adjectival)
• -ation (noun of action)