bankrupt
Plural: bankrupts
Noun
- someone who has insufficient assets to cover their debts
- One who becomes unable to pay his or her debts; an insolvent person; a bankruptee.
- A trader who secretes himself, or does certain other acts tending to defraud his creditors.
Verb
Verb Forms: bankrupted, bankrupting, bankrupts
- To cause to be financially ruined; to impoverish.
- reduce to bankruptcy
- To force into bankruptcy.
Adjective Satellite
- financially ruined
- "a bankrupt company"
Adj
- In a condition of bankruptcy; unable to pay outstanding debts or meet financial obligations; specifically, having been legally declared insolvent.
- Destitute of, or wholly lacking a good quality, value, etc. one should possess or once possessed.
Examples
- a bankrupt merchant
- a morally bankrupt politician
- A well-placed ’Q’ can bankrupt your opponent’s chances of winning.
Origin / 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.
Synonyms
belly-up, break, insolvent, ruin, smash, almsless, arm, badly off, bankrupt, beggared, beggarly, boracic, broke, broken, broker than the Ten Commandments, destitute, dirt poor, disadvantaged, down and out, down at heel, down on one's luck, down on one's uppers, empty-handed, feeling the pinch, flat, hard up, impecunious, impoverished, in need, indigent, lower-class, necessitous, needy, oofless, pauperized, penniless, penurious, pinched, pok kai, poor, poor as Job, poor as a church mouse, poor as a rat, possessionless, poverty-ridden, poverty-stricken, shillingless, skint, stone-broke, stony-broke, strapped, stuck, threadbare, unwealthy, wealthless
Scrabble Score: 16
bankrupt: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordbankrupt: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
bankrupt: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary