liquidation

noun6

1. •
   The action or process of winding up the affairs of a company, etc.; the selling of the assets of a business as part of the process of dissolving the business.

   • The store is having a liquidation sale: everything must go as they go out of business.
2. •
   The act of exchange of an asset of lesser liquidity with a more liquid one, such as cash.
3. •
   (euphemistic) The action or process of abolishing or eliminating; the murder of dehumanized victims.

   • When Stalinists spoke of the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, they intentionally created ambiguity regarding reeducation versus murder.
4. •
   The clearing off or settling of a debt.

   • Their compensation becomes part of the national debt, for the liquidation of which there is the one exhautstless fund. — 1790
5. •
   The partial clearing of the board, by an exchange of pieces, to obtain an obviously winning position.

   • The liquidation with 31 Qd2 Rd2 put [Viktor] Korchnoi into a lost ending, but nothing else would have rescued him either. — 1991
6. •
   (rare) The action or fact of partaking of an alcoholic drink.

   • As regards liquidation, champagne, which, except at the tables of the wealthy, was never seen, for it was a guinea a bottle, is now almost as vin ordinaire. — 1889