Other forms: implemented, implementing, implements
To implement something is to take a plan off the paper and make it actually happen. Governments implement policies, companies implement systems, teams implement a change that was agreed three meetings ago.
It is a formal word and it needs a plan behind it, which is what separates it from do. You implement a decision, a policy, a recommendation, a strategy — always something that already exists in written or agreed form. You cannot implement a walk. The noun is different in both stress and sense: an IM-ple-ment is a tool, usually a plain one — garden implements, farm implements — while the verb is im-ple-MENT.
1verbimplementTo put a plan or decision into effect.
“The council will implement the new rules in April.”
2nountoolA tool, especially a simple one for outdoor or manual work.
“The shed was full of rusting garden implements.”
synonyms: tool, instrument, utensil
3verbcomputingIn computing, to build the working code for something already specified.
“She implemented the search in an afternoon.”
implement is a way of acting on a plan.
Latin implementum came from implere, to fill up, and it first meant the things that fill out a household — the tools and equipment. English kept that as the noun. The verb is the newer sense and it fills something else: the gap between a plan and the thing done.
Proto-Indo-European
*pleh₁-
Latin
implēmentum — a filling up
English, today
implement
Latin implēmentum (“a filling up”), from Latin impleō (“to fill up”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA