What does committing mean?
Committing is the -ing form of the verb "commit," one of English's most versatile action verbs. Its oldest and most prominent sense is negative: to perpetrate an act, particularly a crime or offense, as in committing theft or fraud. A second major sense is constructive rather than criminal — pledging or binding oneself to a course of action, whether committing funds to a project, committing to a relationship, or committing resources to a cause. A related sense involves entrusting someone or something to another's care, such as committing a document to safekeeping, while a figurative use means fixing information firmly in memory, as in committing a speech to memory. Derived through Latin from committere, "to join together" or "to entrust," the word belongs to the large family of terms built on mittere, "to send." Its register spans casual conversation to legal writing, making it essential vocabulary in both everyday and formal contexts.
verbCommitting is the present participle and gerund of the verb "commit": to carry out or perpetrate an act, especially a crime or something wrong, or to pledge or bind oneself to a course of action.
- To carry out or perpetrate an act, especially a crime or wrongdoing (committing a crime, committing fraud).
- To pledge, dedicate, or bind oneself or resources to a course of action (committing funds, committing to a plan).
- To entrust or consign someone or something to another's care (committing a patient to hospital care).
- To fix something in one's memory (committing a passage to memory).
"By signing the lease, she was committing herself to a full year in the city."
"The court found no evidence that he had been committing fraud during his tenure."
"The government was reluctant to commit troops overseas, wary of committing itself to a prolonged conflict."
Every word from "mission" to "missile" descends from the same Latin root, mittere, "to send" — so when you're committing to something, you are quite literally sending yourself there.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of committing
Committing derives from the Latin verb committere, formed from com- ("together") and mittere ("to send"), originally meaning to bring together, entrust, or engage. It entered English in the medieval period via Old French, initially carrying senses of entrusting and engaging oneself, before the legal sense of perpetrating an offense became dominant. It shares its root with a wide family of words including mission, missile, admit, transmit, and remit, all ultimately descended from mittere.
Related word forms
How committing is actually used
The gerund form is common in legal and formal contexts, where phrases like "guilty of committing" appear frequently. In everyday speech, people more often use the base form "commit"; "committing" appears naturally in progressive tenses and after prepositions such as "before," "for," or "in the act of." The crime sense carries strongly negative connotations, while the dedication sense is neutral or positive.
Easily confused with committing
"Commuting" means traveling regularly between home and work, while "committing" means carrying out an act or pledging oneself to something.