commit

1 perform an act, usually with a negative connotation; "perpetrate a crime"; "pull a bank robbery" [syn: perpetrate, pull]

2 give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause; "She committed herself to the work of God"; "give one's talents to a good cause"; "consecrate your life to the church" [syn: give, dedicate, consecrate, devote]

3 cause to be admitted; of persons to an institution; "After the second episode, she had to be committed"; "he was committed to prison" [syn: institutionalize, institutionalise, send, charge]

4 confer a trust upon; "The messenger was entrusted with the general's secret"; "I commit my soul to God" [syn: entrust, intrust, trust, confide]

5 make an investment; "Put money into bonds" [syn: invest, put, place] [ant: divest] [also: committing, committed]

English

Etymology

From Latin committere, to connect, commit; to send. See mission.

Verb

1. To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to intrust; to consign; -- used with to, unto.

   Commit thy way unto the Lord. Psalms xxxvii. 5.

   Bid him farewell, commit him to the grave. -Shakespeare

2. To put in charge of a jailor; to imprison.

   These two were committed. -Clarendon

3. To do; to perpetrate, as a crime, sin, or fault.

   Thou shalt not commit adultery. Exodus xx. 14.

4. To join a contest; to match; -- followed by with.
5. To pledge or bind; to compromise, expose, or endanger by some decisive act or preliminary step; -- often used reflexively; as, to commit one's self to a certain course.

   You might have satisfied every duty of political friendship, without commiting the honor of your sovereign. -Junius

   Any sudden assent to the proposal ... might possibly be considered as committing the faith of the United States. -Marshall

6. To confound.

   Committing short and long [quantities]. -Milton

7. , To sin; especially, to be incontinent.

   Commit not with man's sworn spouse. -Shakespeare

Usage notes

To Commit, intrust, consign. These words have in common the idea of transferring from one's self to the care and custody of another. Commit is the widest term, and may express only the general idea of delivering into the charge of another; as, to commit a lawsuit to the care of an attorney; or it may have the special sense of intrusting with or without limitations, as to a superior power, or to a careful servant, or of consigning, as to writing or paper, to the flames, or to prison. To intrust denotes the act of committing to the exercise of confidence or trust; as, to intrust a friend with the care of a child, or with a secret. To consign is a more formal act, and regards the thing transferred as placed chiefly or wholly out of one's immediate control; as, to consign a pupil to the charge of his instructor; to consign goods to an agent for sale; to consign a work to the press.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kɔ.mi/
• SAMPA: /kO.mi/

Verb

commit

1. the third-person singular indicative past historic of commettre.

Commitment means to duty or pledge to something or someone, and can refer to:

• Personal commitment, interaction dominated by obligations. These obligations may be mutual, or self-imposed, or explicitly stated, or may not. Distinction is often made between commitment as a member of an organisation (such as a sporting team, a religion, or as an employee), and a personal commitment, which is often a pledge or promise to ones' self for personal growth.
• Brand commitment refers to the strength of the relationship between consumers (or customers) and a particular brand (or service).
• Involuntary commitment, the practice of using legal means or forms to commit a person to a mental hospital, insane asylum or psychiatric ward against the will or over the protests of that person.
• Ontological commitment, belief in an ontology in philosophy
• Organizational commitment can mean something pledged by an organization as opposed to its members
• Commitment (computer science) - the concept of commitment is studied in several branches of Computer Science around the notion of something pledged.

• Physical commitment is information pledged about physical systems (that are situated at a particular place and time).
• Social commitment, in a multi-agent system a directed obligation from one agent to another about to being about a certain state of affairs or to perform certain actions
• Commitment scheme, in cryptography
• Commit (data management), to make changes permanent in data management. For example, COMMIT is a statement in SQL. The opposite is to rollback (data management).

• Kingsbury Commitment, the beginning of AT&T's monopoly in the telephone industry
• Climate commitment, a model of climate change.
• LBC Commitment, the second major-label album from the band Lucky Boys Confusion
• Commitment (Guang Liang album), or 約定, an album by a Malaysian Taiwanese singer Guang Liang.
• "Commitment," a song by LeAnn Rimes on her album entitled Sittin' on Top of the World.

See also

• Committed
• Commit_charge

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