The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Execution \Ex`e*cu"tion\, n. [F. ex['e]cution, L. executio,
   exsecutio.]
   1. The act of executing; a carrying into effect or to
      completion; performance; achievement; consummation; as,
      the execution of a plan, a work, etc.
      [1913 Webster]

            The excellence of the subject contributed much to
            the happiness of the execution.       --Dryden.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. A putting to death as a legal penalty; death lawfully
      inflicted; as, the execution of a murderer; to grant a
      stay of execution.
      [1913 Webster]

            A warrant for his execution.          --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. The act of the mode of performing a work of art, of
      performing on an instrument, of engraving, etc.; as, the
      execution of a statue, painting, or piece of music.
      [1913 Webster]

            The first quality of execution is truth. --Ruskin.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. The mode of performing any activity; as, the game plan was
      excellent, but its execution was filled with mistakes.
      [PJC]

   5. (Law)
      (a) The carrying into effect the judgment given in a court
          of law.
      (b) A judicial writ by which an officer is empowered to
          carry a judgment into effect; final process.
      (c) The act of signing, and delivering a legal instrument,
          or giving it the forms required to render it valid;
          as, the execution of a deed, or a will.
          [1913 Webster]

   6. That which is executed or accomplished; effect; effective
      work; -- usually with do.
      [1913 Webster]

            To do some fatal execution.           --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   7. The act of sacking a town. [Obs.] --Beau. & FL.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

execution
    n 1: putting a condemned person to death [syn: execution,
         executing, capital punishment, death penalty]
    2: the act of performing; of doing something successfully; using
       knowledge as distinguished from merely possessing it; "they
       criticised his performance as mayor"; "experience generally
       improves performance" [syn: performance, execution,
       carrying out, carrying into action]
    3: (computer science) the process of carrying out an instruction
       by a computer [syn: execution, instruction execution]
    4: (law) the completion of a legal instrument (such as a
       contract or deed) by signing it (and perhaps sealing and
       delivering it) so that it becomes legally binding and
       enforceable [syn: execution, execution of instrument]
    5: a routine court order that attempts to enforce the judgment
       that has been granted to a plaintiff by authorizing a sheriff
       to carry it out [syn: execution, writ of execution]
    6: the act of accomplishing some aim or executing some order;
       "the agency was created for the implementation of the policy"
       [syn: execution, implementation, carrying out]
    7: unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by a human
       being [syn: murder, slaying, execution]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

197 Moby Thesaurus words for "execution":
   accomplished fact, accomplishment, accordance, achievement,
   acquittal, acquittance, action, adherence, administration, agency,
   angary, annexation, annexure, approach, art, assassination,
   attachment, attainment, ax, bane, beheading, block, blood,
   bloodletting, bloodshed, braining, bringing to fruition, burning,
   cantando, capital punishment, care, carrying out, collectivization,
   commandeering, commission, communalization, communization,
   completion, compliance, conduct, confiscation, conformance,
   conformity, consummation, cross, crucifixion, dealing death,
   death chair, death chamber, decapitation, decollation,
   defenestration, delivery, demilegato, destruction,
   destruction of life, direction, discharge, dispatch, distraint,
   distress, doing, driving, drop, effectuation, electric chair,
   electrocution, eminent domain, enactment, enforcement, euthanasia,
   exercise, expression, expropriation, extermination, fait accompli,
   fingering, flow of blood, fruition, fulfillment, functioning,
   fusillade, gallows, gallows-tree, garnishment, garrote,
   gas chamber, gassing, gibbet, glissando, gore, guillotine, halter,
   handling, hanging, heed, heeding, hemlock, hemp, hempen collar,
   hot seat, immolation, implementation, impoundment, impressment,
   intonation, judicial murder, keeping, kill, killing, lapidation,
   legato, lethal chamber, levy, liquidation, maiden, management,
   manipulation, manner, martyrdom, martyrization, mastery,
   mercy killing, mezzo staccato, mission accomplished, mode, murder,
   music-making, nationalization, necktie party, noose, observance,
   observation, occupation, operancy, operation, overproduction,
   parlando, performance, performing, perpetration, pianism,
   pizzicato, poisoning, practice, production, productiveness,
   prosecution, pursuance, realization, removal, rendering, rendition,
   repercussion, respect, responsibility, right of angary,
   ritual killing, ritual murder, rope, rubato, running, sacrifice,
   satisfaction, scaffold, sequestration, shooting, skill, slaughter,
   slaying, slur, socialization, spiccato, staccato, stake, steering,
   stoning, strangling, strangulation, style, success, taking of life,
   technique, the ax, the block, the chair, the gallows,
   the gas chamber, the guillotine, the hot seat, the rope, touch,
   transaction, tree, work, working, workings



The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

execution
execute
run

    The process of carrying out
   the instructions in a computer program by a computer.

   See also dry run.

   (1996-05-13)


Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

EXECUTION, contracts. The accomplishment of a thing; as the execution of a
bond and warrant of attorney, which is the signing, sealing, and delivery of
the same.



Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

EXECUTION, crim. law. The putting a convict to death, agreeably to law, in
pursuance of his sentence.



Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

EXECUTION, practice. The act of carrying into effect the final judgment of a
court, or other jurisdiction. The writ which authorizes the officer so to
carry into effect such judgment is also called an execution.
     2. A distinction has been made between an execution which is used to
make the money due on a judgment out of the property of the defendant, and
which is called a final execution; and one which tends to an end but is not
absolutely final, as a capias ad satisfaciendum, by virtue of which the body
of the defendant is taken, to the intent that the plaintiff shall be
satisfied his debt, &c., the imprisonment not being absolute, but until he
shall satisfy the same; this is called an execution quousque. 6 Co. 87.
     3. Executions are either to recover specific things, or money. 1. Of
the first class are the writs of habere facias seisinam.; (q.v.) habere
facias possessionem; (q.v.) retorno habendo; (q.v.) distringas. (q.v.) 2.
Executions for the recovery of money are those which issue against the body
of the defendant, as the capias ad satisfaciendum, (q.v.); an attachment,
(q.v.); those which issue against his goods and chattels; namely, the fieri
facias, (q.v.); the, venditioni exponas, (q.v.); those which issue against
his lands, the levari facias; (q.v.) the liberari facias; the elegit. (q.v.)
Vide 10 Vin. Ab. 541; 1 Ves. jr. 430; 1 Sell. Pr. 512; Bac. Ab. h.t.;
Com. Dig. h.t.; the various Digests, h.t.; Tidd's Pr. Index, h.t.; 3
Bouv. Inst. n. 3365, et seq. Courts will at any time grant leave to amend an
execution so as to make it conformable to the judgment on which it was
issued. 1 Serg. & R. 98. A writ of error lies on an award of execution. 5
Rep. 32, a; 1 Rawle, Rep. 47, 48; Writ of Execution;