EXECUTING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does executing mean? 

• EXECUTING (noun)
  The noun EXECUTING has 1 sense:

1. putting a condemned person to death

  Familiarity information: EXECUTING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXECUTING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Putting a condemned person to death

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

capital punishment; death penalty; executing; execution

Hypernyms ("executing" is a kind of...):

corporal punishment (the infliction of physical injury on someone convicted of committing a crime)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "executing"):

burning; burning at the stake (execution by fire)

hanging (a form of capital punishment; victim is suspended by the neck from a gallows or gibbet until dead)

burning; electrocution (execution by electricity)

beheading; decapitation (execution by cutting off the victim's head)

crucifixion (the act of executing by a method widespread in the ancient world; the victim's hands and feet are bound or nailed to a cross)

Derivation:

execute (kill as a means of socially sanctioned punishment)

 Context examples 

Might he be trusted with the commission, what infinite pleasure should he have in executing it! he could ride to London at any time.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

But there is still indeed a more weighty reason, why the kings of this country have been always averse from executing so terrible an action, unless upon the utmost necessity.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

This domain captures clinical sign information including ophthalmology, physical examination, and dermal examination collected in life while executing the study.

(Clinical Observation Domain, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

No. I had not been back to Woking between getting the order and executing the commission.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Soon, oh, very soon, will death extinguish these throbbings and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears me to the dust; and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also sink to rest.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

High in the air, and straight up, soared the shape of white, now a struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded, executing a fantastic dance there above him in the air and never once returning to earth.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely—I am certain he had a delight in that formal parade of executing justice—and when we got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)