1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Implement

IMPLEMENT (Lat. implementum, a filling up, from implere, to fill), in ordinary usage, a tool, especially in the plural for the set of tools necessary for a particular trade or for completing a particular piece of work (see Tools). It is also the most general term applied to the weapons and tools that remain of those used by primitive man. The Late Lat. implementum, more usually in the plural, implementa, was used for all the objects necessary to stock or “fill up” a house, farm, &c.; it was thus applied to furniture of a house, the vestments and sacred vessels of a church, and to articles of clothing, &c. The transition to the necessary outfit of a trade, &c., is easy. In its original Latin sense of “filling up,” the term survives in Scots law, meaning full performance or “fulfilment” of a contract, agreement, &c.; “to implement” is thus also used in Scots law for to carry out, perform.