Emily Dickinson Lexicon

EX-E-CU'TION, n.

1. Performance; the act of completing or accomplishing. The excellence of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution. Dryden.
2. In law, the carrying into effect a sentence or judgment of court; the last act of the law in completing the process by which justice is to be done, by which the possession of land or debt, damages or cost, is obtained, or by which judicial punishment is inflicted.
3. The instrument, warrant, or official order, by which an officer is empowered to carry a judgment into effect. An execution issues from the clerk of a court, and is levied by a sherif, his deputy, or a constable, on the estate, goods or body of the debtor.
4. The act of signing and sealing a legal instrument, or giving it the forms required to render it a valid act; as, the execution of a deed.
5. The last act of the law in the punishment of criminals; capital punishment; death inflicted according to the forms of law.
6. Effect; something done or accomplished. Every shot did execution.
7. Destruction; slaughter. Shak. It is used after do, to do execution; never after make.
8. Performance, as in music or other art.
9. In music, execution denotes a facility of voice or finger running rapid divisions, and performing all the higher requisites, as intonation, taste, grace, feeling and expression.