Execute

This word means to follow out to the end, to carry into effect, to accomplish, to fulfill, to perform; as, to execute an order, to execute a purpose. And the dictionaries and almost universal usage say that it also means to put to death in conformity with a judicial sentence; as, to execute a criminal. Some of our careful speakers, however, maintain that the use of the word in this sense is indefensible. They say that laws and sentences are executed, but not criminals , and that their execution only rarely results in the death of the persons upon whom they are executed. In the hanging of a criminal, it is, then, not the criminal who is executed, but the law and the sentence. The criminal is hanged .