Carried out or performed an action, plan, or instruction, or in legal contexts, put to death as punishment for a crime. In computing, it means to run a program or command.
From Latin 'executus,' past participle of 'exsequi' meaning 'to follow out' or 'to carry out,' formed from 'ex-' (out) + 'sequi' (to follow). The death penalty meaning developed from the idea of 'carrying out' a legal sentence.
The same word describes running a computer program and carrying out a death sentence because both involve following instructions to their completion. This linguistic overlap reveals how we understand abstract processes through concrete, sometimes uncomfortable metaphors of finality and completion.
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