Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To do, perform, or perpetrate.
- intransitive verb To put in trust or charge; entrust.
- intransitive verb To consign for future use or for preservation.
- intransitive verb To place officially in confinement or custody, as in a mental health facility.
- intransitive verb To put into a place to be disposed of or kept safe.
- intransitive verb To make known the views of (oneself) on an issue.
- intransitive verb To bind, obligate, or devote, as by a pledge.
- intransitive verb To refer (a legislative bill, for example) to a committee.
- intransitive verb To pledge, obligate, or devote one's own self.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A game of cards.
- To give in trust; put into charge or keeping; intrust; surrender; give up; consign: with to or unto.
- To engage; involve; put or bring into risk or danger by a preliminary step or decision which cannot be recalled; compromise.
- To consign to custody by official warrant, as a criminal or a lunatic; specifically, to send to prison for a short term or for trial.
- In legislation, to refer or intrust to a committee or select number of persons for their consideration and report.
- To memorize; learn by heart: a shortened colloquial form of the phrase to commit to memory: as, have you committed your speech?
- To do or perform (especially something reprehensible, wrong, inapt, etc.); perpetrate: as, to
commit murder, treason, felony, or trespass; to commit a blunder or a solecism. - To join or put together unfitly or heterogeneously; match improperly or incongruously; confound: a Latinism.
- To consider; regard; account.
- To speak or act in such a manner as virtually to bind one's self to a certain line of conduct, or to the approval of a certain opinion or course of action: as, he has committed himself to the support of the foreign policy of the government; avoid committing yourself.
- Synonyms Intrust, Confide, Commit, Consign, agree in general in expressing a transfer from the care or keeping of one to that of another. To intrust is to give to another in trust, to put into another's care with confidence in him. Confide is still more expressive of trust or confidence, especially in the receiver's discretion or integrity; the word is now used most of secrets, but may be used more widely. Commit implies some measure of formality in the act; it is the most general of these words. Consign implies still greater formality in the surrender: as, to
consign goods to a person for sale; to consign the dead to the grave. To consign seems the most final as an act; to commit stands next to it in this respect. - To commit adultery.
- To consign to prison; to exercise the power of imprisoning.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb obsolete To sin; esp., to be incontinent.
- transitive verb To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to intrust; to consign; -- used with
to ,unto . - transitive verb To put in charge of a jailor; to imprison.
- transitive verb To do; to perpetrate, as a crime, sin, or fault.
- transitive verb rare To join for a contest; to match; -- followed by
with . - transitive verb To pledge or bind; to compromise, expose, or endanger by some decisive act or preliminary step; -- often used reflexively.
- transitive verb An obsolete Latinism. To confound.
- transitive verb (Legislation) to refer or intrust it to a committee or others, to be considered and reported.
- transitive verb to learn by heart; to memorize.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To give in
trust ; to put intocharge orkeeping ; tointrust ; toconsign ; -- used with to, unto. - verb To put in charge of a
jailor ; toimprison . - verb To
do ; toperpetrate , as acrime ,sin , orfault . - verb To
join a contest; tomatch ; -- followed by with. - verb obsolete To
confound . - verb obsolete, intransitive To commit an offence; especially, to
fornicate . - noun computing The act of committing (e.g. a
database transaction orsource code into asource control repository ), making it a permanent change.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause
- verb perform an act, usually with a negative connotation
- verb cause to be admitted; of persons to an institution
- verb confer a trust upon
- verb make an investment
- verb engage in or perform
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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In this book the word commit occurs only slightly less often than the and and because it works to make definite commitments.
The Pathfinder Nicholas Lore 1998
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The phrase 'commit' when referring to suicide is still in common usage
BBC News - Home 2011
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And besides, would Electro Kevin commit financial suicide and lose the roof over his head for the sake of a clear conscience?
If It Looks Crazy And It Sounds Crazy………….. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2009
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Ok,, To commit is to pledge yourself to a certain purpose or line of conduct.
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The endless Seattle cycle of "wait for new input and never commit" is the problem; plus a curious tunnel-o-phobia that doesn't afflict most of the rest of the world.
Council Memo: Rail May Be Possible on Smaller 520 « PubliCola 2010
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The basic rule of morality of war: the number of atrocities you commit is divided by the number of atrocities you could commit — but you did not!
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A Virginia man who spent eight years in prison for a rape he didn't commit is refusing a $226,000 state payoff, saying it comes with too many strings attached.
Former Va. inmate refuses $226K payoff Washington Post Editors 2010
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But when we give benefits through the tax system (or when they and their kin commit crime there is no such guarantee).
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But his commit is so superficial that there is no reason to take it as indicating that any significant number of liberals make that mistake.
Matthew Yglesias » Domestic Politics vs. Foreign Policy 2009
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The most heinous crime an employer of labor can commit is to scab on his fellow employers of labor.
THE SCAB 2010
yarb commented on the word commit
Citation (in the sense of "cause to be admitted") on yell.
n.b. What is the commonest word not yet added to Wordie?
June 29, 2008
mollusque commented on the word commit
I just added flew, which has 34 million g-hits. Commit has 85 million.
July 9, 2008
bilby commented on the word commit
A poem by Wiktionary (apologies to ruzuzu):
to give in trust; to put into
charge
or keeping; to intrust; to consign;
to put in
charge
of a jailor; to imprison.
to do; to perpetrate, as a
crime,
sin, or
fault.
to join a contest; to match;
to pledge or bind; to compromise,
expose, or endanger
by some decisive act or preliminary step; for example to
commit oneself to a certain
action, to
commit oneself to doing
something.
to confound.
to sin; especially, to
be
incontinent.
May 10, 2012
ruzuzu commented on the word commit
I knew my comment about ruepees was going to come back and bite me.
I'm adding this to my list of found-poetry.
May 10, 2012