Bankrupt
//ˈbæŋk.ɹəpt// adj, noun, verb
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 One who becomes unable to pay his or her debts; an insolvent person; a bankruptee.
- 2 someone who has insufficient assets to cover their debts wordnet
- 3 A trader who secretes himself, or does certain other acts tending to defraud his creditors. UK, obsolete
Verb
- 1 To force into bankruptcy. transitive
"The cost of the Mendip line had, however, bankrupted the S.D.R. [Somerset & Dorset Railway], and it was leased to the two larger companies for 999 years in 1875, and named the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway."
- 2 reduce to bankruptcy wordnet
- 3 to get placed last in Tycoon with the bankruptcy rule
Adjective
- 1 In a condition of bankruptcy; unable to pay outstanding debts or meet financial obligations; specifically, having been legally declared insolvent. usually
"a bankrupt merchant"
- 2 Destitute of, or wholly lacking a good quality, value, etc. one should possess or once possessed. figuratively
"a morally bankrupt politician"
Adjective
- 1 financially ruined wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"We were financially troubled, in short, we were bankrupt."
Etymology
Partial calque of Italian bancarotta (literally “a broken bench”), from banca (“bank”, literally “bench”) + rotta (“broken, rupted”), which refers to an out-of-business bank, having its bench physically broken, signifying that the working moneylender was insolvent.
Related phrases
More for "bankrupt"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.