noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A contract in early Ancient Rome in which the debtor pledged his own person as collateral should he default on his loan (thus risking becoming a slave to the creditor).

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin nexum.

Related phrases

ancient rome

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.