Customarily, if you borrow $10 for lunch from a coworker, writing IOU $10 on a yellow sticky note acts as a legal promissory note that you will repay said amount on payday.
Source: wiktionary
Iou
Synonyms for "iou" (43 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (9)
Strong matches (13)
Related words (21)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
More general
3 entriesis a
1 entriesrelated to
3 entriesTranslations
23 translations across 17 languages.
Danish
1 entries- skylderklæring noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Dutch
2 entries- schuldbekentenis noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
- schulderkenning noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Finnish
1 entries- velkakirja noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
French
1 entries- reconnaissance de dette noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
German
2 entries- Schuldanerkenntnis noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
- Schuldanerkennung noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Greek
1 entries- υποσχετική noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Hungarian
2 entries- adósságelismervény noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
- elismervény adósságról noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Italian
1 entries- riconoscimento di debito noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Japanese
1 entries- 借用書 noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Latin
1 entries- syngrapha noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Plautdietsch
1 entries- Schultbewiess noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Polish
2 entries- kwit dłużny noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
- skrypt dłużny noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Romansch
1 entries- renconuschientscha dal debit noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Russian
1 entries- расписка noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Spanish
3 entries- abonaré noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
- pagaré noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
- reconocimiento de deuda noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Swedish
1 entries- enkelt skuldebrev noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Welsh
1 entries- dylednod noun (informal promissory note that is not a negotiable instrument)
Sample sentences
2 total sentences available.
When David couldn’t afford to match the money in the poker pot, he added an IOU for the remaining amount instead.
Source: wiktionary
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.