bankrupt

Etymology

Partial calque of Italian bancarotta, from banca (“bench, bank”) + rotta (“broken, rupted”), which refers to an out-of-business bank, having its bench physically broken, signifying that the working moneylender was insolvent.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbæŋ.kɹəpt/, /ˈbæŋ.kɹʌpt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈbæŋk.ɹəpt/, /ˈbæŋk.ɹʌpt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æŋkɹəpt, -æŋkɹʌpt
• Hyphenation: bank‧rupt

Adjective

bankrupt (comparative more bankrupt, superlative most bankrupt)

1. (finance) In a condition of bankruptcy; having been legally declared insolvent; unable to pay one's debts.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:impoverished

   a bankrupt merchant

   • 1926, Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, page 141:

     "How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked. "Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly."

2. (figuratively) Destitute of, or wholly lacking something once possessed, or something one should possess.

   a morally bankrupt politician

   • 1775 January 17 (first performance), [Richard Brinsley Sheridan], The Rivals, a Comedy. […], London: […] John Wilkie, […], published 1775, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 80:

     O Julia! I am bankrupt in gratitude! but the time is ſo preſſing, it calls on you for ſo haſty a reſolution.

Verb

bankrupt (third-person singular simple present bankrupts, present participle bankrupting, simple past and past participle bankrupted)

1. (transitive) To force into bankruptcy.
   • 1953 August, David R. Webb, “By Rail to Bournemouth”, in Railway Magazine, page 553:

     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.

Noun

bankrupt (plural bankrupts)

1. One who becomes unable to pay his or her debts; an insolvent person.
2. (UK, law, obsolete) A trader who secretes himself, or does certain other acts tending to defraud his creditors.

Derived terms

See also

• defunct
• illiquid
• insolvent

References

• Michael Quinion (2004) “Bankrupt”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, →ISBN.
• “bankrupt”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.