Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To be responsible for; commit.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To do execute, or perform; commit: generally in a bad sense: as, to perpetrate a crime.
  • To produce, as something execrable or shocking; perform (something) in an execrable or shocking way: as, to perpetrate a pun.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To do or perform; to carry through; to execute, commonly in a bad sense; to commit (as a crime, an offense); to be guilty of.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To be guilty of, or responsible for a crime etc; to commit.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb perform an act, usually with a negative connotation

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin perpetrāre, perpetrāt-, to accomplish : per-, per- + patrāre, to bring about (from pater, father; see pəter- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin perpetratus, past participle of perpetrare ("to carry through"), from per ("through") + patrare ("to perform"), akin to potis ("able"), potens ("powerful"); see potent.

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