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.

  • 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.
  • noun A game of cards.

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

  • 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.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To sin; esp., to be incontinent.

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

  • verb To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to intrust; to consign; -- used with to, unto.
  • verb To put in charge of a jailor; to imprison.
  • verb To do; to perpetrate, as a crime, sin, or fault.
  • verb To join a contest; to match; -- 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 or source code into a source 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

[Middle English committen, from Latin committere : com-, com- + mittere, to send.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin committere ("to bring together, join, compare, commit (a wrong), incur, give in charge, etc."), from com ("together") + mittere ("to send"). See mission.

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Examples

Comments

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  • 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

  • I just added flew, which has 34 million g-hits. Commit has 85 million.

    July 9, 2008

  • 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

  • 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