Administration of estate

What does Administration of estate mean in American Law?

The definition of Administration of estate in the law of the United States, as defined by the lexicographer Arthur Leff in his legal dictionary is:

The process of protecting and managing an estate for the benefit of, and with fiduciary duty toward, another person or persons, with the expectation that the estate will eventually come to an end, and its remaining assets, if any, will be distributed to others who will then own them outright. The kinds of estates which may be involved are various-debtors, bankrupts, incompetents, decedents, trust settlors, all generate estate administrations-and the detailed rules governing what is proper administration are equally diverse (from kind to kind and jurisdiction to jurisdiction). Moreover, the names of the administrators are also divers; executor,

administrator, trustee, guardian, receiver are all used to describe persons engaged in the “administration of an estate.” See also administrator of a decedent’s estate.