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debt
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
debt
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a debt burden
▪ He made a serious attempt ease the country's debt burden.
a debt/food/housing etc crisis
▪ The failure of the crop this year will create a food crisis.
a debt/stress etc counsellor (=helping with debt, stress etc problems)
▪ A debt counsellor has been helping the family.
bad debt
collect tax/rent/a debt
▪ The landlady came around once a month to collect the rent.
consumer debt (=money people owe because they buy too much)
▪ the growth in consumer debt
debt collector
debt relief
debt/unemployment etc trap
▪ people caught in the unemployment trap
group/bereavement/debt etc counselling
▪ a debt counselling service
incur expenses/costs/losses/debts etc
▪ If the council loses the appeal, it will incur all the legal costs.
▪ the heavy losses incurred by airlines since September 11th
mounting debts
▪ They faced mounting debts.
national debt
▪ The government taxed fuel highly in order to finance the national debt.
owe sb a debt of gratitude
▪ I owe my former teacher a deep debt of gratitude.
owe sb a debt (of gratitude)
▪ the debt that we owe to our teachers
oxygen debt
repay a loan/debt etc
▪ Your mortgage will be repaid over 25 years.
repayment...debt
▪ the repayment of debt
tax/ticket/debt/refuse collector
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
bad
▪ The banks would have fewer bad debt provisions to declare.
▪ It also has fewer subsidiaries to shunt bad debt into.
▪ The disadvantage of a bad debt warranty and indemnity is that all it does is provide a remedy for the purchaser.
▪ Those loans are the focal point of the bad-debt crisis plaguing the financial system and weighing down the economy.
▪ Most large societies have also made heavy provisions against bad debts.
▪ Foreign sellers have led the charge, frantically dumping stocks of banks burdened with mountains of bad debt, according to analysts.
▪ Unfortunately most of the extra cash grabbed was swallowed up by bad debts.
▪ Firstly, there is no reason why the purchaser should pay for items which eventually materialise into bad debts.
corporate
▪ This is measured by the difference between the yields on twenty-year government and corporate debt. 2.
▪ As for issuing activity Friday: Only $ 220 million of agency debt was priced; no straight corporate debt was offered.
▪ Margins and jobs are still shrinking in many industries and corporate debt has doubled in the last five years.
▪ In the new issue market, more than $ 500 million of agency debt and no new corporate debt was sold.
▪ Prospects are even gloomier in the corporate-debt markets.
▪ They point out that corporate bad debts have soared as the economy has slumped.
▪ But deflation is also squeezing corporate margins and making it harder to tackle the high levels of corporate and national debts.
external
▪ Despite this major problem, banks must endeavour to monitor the external debt position of countries.
▪ A high ratio invariably means future output growth and, hopefully, improved external debt servicing capacity through increased exports.
▪ By 1988 bank borrowing accounted for only 53% of their external financing; debt equalled only 63% of their assets.
▪ The overall external debt was US$6,900 million.
foreign
▪ The first column shows that the poorest regions tend to have the highest ratios of foreign debt to social product.
▪ Hammadi said that the budget would reduce by US$2,495 million foreign debts including new loans expected in 1990.
▪ During the three years he was in charge over £300 million in foreign debts were accumulated.
▪ In 1977, the Republic's foreign debt was about £1 000 million a year.
▪ Foreign-exchange reserves have been maintained at their current low level only by failing to pay back some foreign debt.
▪ The first priority is the servicing of foreign debts and other foreign contracts.
▪ An estimated US$1,500 million of this assistance, however, was expected to be absorbed by foreign debt service payments.
▪ Much of the country's foreign debt was built up during the apartheid-sponsored civil war, which cost 1m lives.
high
▪ And high levels of debt offered one possible solution to problems of how to discipline managers.
▪ Return on equity is extremely high, but this is due mainly to the extremely high debt position of Technosystems.
▪ The combination of tight money and high debt is causing more than token distress.
▪ Look for REITs that have either high debts and high cash distribution.
▪ Lower interest rates in 1992 more than compensated for the effect of higher average debt levels.
▪ The company stands to save at least $ 13 million a year in interest expense by replacing higher-cost debt.
▪ Sales across the country were slower than expected this year as consumers grappled with higher debts and concern about a weaker economy.
▪ Wall Street analysts say waste companies in general have steady cash flows, making it easier to service higher levels of debt.
huge
▪ The Belfast company had huge debts and was on the brink of collapse.
▪ This has resulted in huge profits for the wholesalers and huge debts for the utilities.
▪ The recession has deepened, the huge national debt has increased, the people's lot worsened.
▪ For more than a decade, the farming kibbutz where Avishi Grossman spent his life has struggled under a huge debt.
▪ The company has huge debts relative to its size - the most recent available figures show Sock Shop's gearing was 200 percent.
▪ You could end up being worse off, with huge debts on top of being jobless.
▪ From its exports it can earn foreign currency, and begin to pay off its huge debts.
▪ But the depressed market has caused the company to build up huge debts.
large
▪ But many people in the South East who enjoy large salaries also have large fixed debts and overheads.
▪ He persuaded Eisner that interest rates were ideal for assuming a large amount of debt.
▪ Firms, too, have large debts.
▪ Rising interest rates would increase the costs of refinancing the rest of the large national debt that our government continuously rolls over.
▪ This state of affairs follows the collapse of Mountain with a large level of debt an the receiver snapping at the door.
▪ An especially large debt is owed to the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College for supporting my research at a critical time.
▪ That is the largest debt collection exercise in history.
▪ Webb was an immodest publicist of his achievements, and amassed wealth but also large debts.
national
▪ They could buy out national debts, hold governments to ransom, close down whole economies if they wanted to.
▪ His proposed tax cuts are warmed-over Reaganomics that could saddle our children with an ever-increasing national debt.
▪ Joseph Harker To whom do we owe the national debt?
▪ On that same day, the Treasury Department will run out of money to pay off the national debt.
▪ Here a perennial topic in traditional public finance - the burden of the national debt - is considered.
▪ Rising interest rates would increase the costs of refinancing the rest of the large national debt that our government continuously rolls over.
▪ They all invest money through National Savings, the Government agency that provides safer investment and services the national debt.
▪ The result was the ballooning national debt.
outstanding
▪ And the outstanding debt which excludes mortgages has seen a three-fold increase to £40 billion.
▪ A borrower had a personal covenant with the lender who could still sue for outstanding debts.
▪ Those in the higher socio-economic groups and consumers over 45 years old tend to have higher net savings relative to their outstanding debt.
▪ When some one died, the administrator collected all assets of the deceased and paid his outstanding debts.
▪ Continuing anxiety about the state of the economy forced families to pay off more outstanding debt last month.
▪ Aims are to reduce outstanding debt and achieve low interest payments.
▪ At the end of his term abroad he sells the house and repays any outstanding debt.
public
▪ High military expenditure will fuel inflation, reduce international competitiveness, and balance of payments crises will occur as public debt increases.
▪ Elorriaga had decided to withdraw when Congress refused to support his proposals on taxation and on the refunding of the public debt.
▪ If the building society had used the additional deposit to buy public sector debt, then the consequence would have been avoided.
▪ The Maastricht rules also impose strict limits on public debt.
▪ As we will discover in Chapter 15, in recent years large Federal deficits have caused the public debt to rise sharply.
▪ That issue, its first public debt sale, was priced to yield 7. 25 percent.
total
▪ Only cancellation means definitive ending of the total debt.
▪ Nearly half of the annual total debt amount was accounted for by only 36 financial institutions, Kuroda said.
▪ Several of the major accounts appeared to be excessively overdue when compared with the total ledger aged debt statistics.
▪ What is your total credit card debt today?
▪ In 1993, this total debt surpassed $ 3 trillion.
■ NOUN
burden
▪ The expense of servicing the debt burden increased the budget deficit, which in turn stimulated inflation.
▪ Their debt burden, more than $ 24 billion, has never been higher.
▪ The debt burden is weighing more and more heavily on the weakest economies.
▪ In addition, Alpha demanded a higher cash flow from Mega to meet its debt burden.
▪ By the end of 1992, Metrologie claims it will have reduced its debt burden from £122.26 million to £59.77 million.
▪ Needless to say, virtually all debtor governments are counting on continued negotiations with their creditors to alleviate their debt burdens.
▪ The countries in which they live labour under a massive debt burden - £784 billion of it.
▪ The current debt burden will be written off and the organisation liberated from the public finance system.
collector
▪ The debt collector himself had small debts and was questioned several years ago in Milan over alleged extortion of a client.
▪ By 1994 there were already 2. 4 debt collectors for each 1, 000 families in the United States.
▪ Are you going to use your local agents or staff, a debt collector, a solicitor, political pressure or what?
▪ They're not really bookies these days, they're just debt collectors.
▪ The college takes 500 pupils from across the world and decided to call in debt collectors as a last resort.
▪ Most satisfyingly, of course, debt collectors made an enormous number of personal calls, sometimes international ones.
▪ The debt collector bought up all his debts, and now he owes nearly twice the previous amount.
crisis
▪ The result could be world recession and a worsening of the international debt crisis.
▪ The debt crisis has made commercial banks and international donors wary of making certain types of investments.
▪ A well researched, highly readable account of the debt crisis.
▪ Those loans are the focal point of the bad-debt crisis plaguing the financial system and weighing down the economy.
▪ Since the onset of the debt crisis in the early 1980s more than 70 countries were currently having serious debt problems.
▪ The so-called debt crisis is clearly not a crisis for everyone.
▪ After 1982, the Third World debt crisis also turned banks towards the home market in the search for creditworthy borrowers.
government
▪ Yet shrinking economies mean falling tax revenues and so larger budget deficits and more government debt.
▪ Yields of 10-year bonds fell in six of the 12 major government debt markets tracked by Bloomberg Business News.
▪ This is measured by the total monthly spread between government debt and treasury bills. 3.
▪ This means that any effects of the government debt may be neutralized by the appropriate combination of lump-sum taxes and transfers.
▪ Some 90 percent of government debt is financed from domestic savings, leaving little capital spare for stocks.
▪ This is because ScottishPower repurchased £142 million of government debt last November, in the light of falling interest rates.
problem
▪ Marriage breakdown can be followed by debt problems.
▪ The couple is to be commended for attempting to resolve their debt problem.
▪ In recent years, especially since 1982, a number of countries have developed very serious international debt problems.
▪ Clinton also asked Glickman to report back within 30 days with recommendations to help alleviate debt problems afflicting cattle producers.
▪ There is, however, no systematic training for volunteers who become concerned over issues like the rainforest, the debt problem.
▪ Several ministers of finance tried their hand at coping with the foreign and internal debt problem.
▪ Finally, the importance of illness and unemployment as factors which can push credit users into serious debt problems is clear.
▪ The Citizens' Advice Bureaux are used to helping people sort out their debt problems.
reduction
▪ Multilateral institutions would be asked for debt reductions equivalent to those agreed by the private banks.
▪ He also would establish a national debt-elimination sinking fund to set aside the fruits of economic growth for debt reduction.
▪ The alternative is to push the task of debt reduction even further into the future.
▪ Baldwin had aimed by his example at a debt reduction of £1000 million.
▪ Managers charge a fee and a cut of any debt reduction.
relief
▪ They promised deeper, speedier debt relief at last year's Cologne summit.
▪ He also wants debt relief linked to reform of the International Monetary Fund.
▪ Eight countries that have received debt relief are still paying more on their debts than on health and education.
▪ Moreover, whether or not conditions are attached to debt relief, they will certainly be attached to other forms of aid.
▪ As things stand, only 14 countries are likely to qualify for HIPC2 debt relief this year.
▪ So far their progress on debt relief has been agonisingly slow.
▪ In the end the Group of Seven leading industrial nations supported the debt relief campaign for two reasons.
▪ Progress on debt relief has been miserably slow; it would probably have been even slower without the pledges made in Cologne.
repayment
▪ Southern California Edison, one of the electricity companies facing bankruptcy, defaulted on debt repayments of $ 596m.
▪ Any outstanding debt repayment requirements and / or restrictive covenants on long term debt agreements are additional important. considerations.
▪ As a message about debt repayment, it proved far more effective than a letter writing campaign.
▪ One hundred bankers have been invited to Toronto on April 13 when O&Y is expected to seek formal suspension of debt repayments.
▪ From such perspectives, requirements for any further debt repayments are immoral and illegitimate.
▪ However, all these initiatives require heavy investment at a time when economies are squeezed by foreign debt repayments.
▪ Consumers complained about unaffordable debt repayment settings on both gas and electricity meters.
▪ The property tax will be levied, on the predictable base of immovable property, to yield the required annual debt repayments.
security
▪ But one main purpose, protecting the small investor, barely arises with debt securities.
▪ The most notable example is debt securities which companies promise to hold until they mature.
▪ The legislation covers all debt securities including gilts.
▪ June 97: Verio announces the successful offering of $ 150 million in institutionally-placed debt securities.
▪ The screen-based systems of the exchanges now make it feasible to disseminate price quotations for debt securities and to report transactions.
▪ These high-yield debt securities are considered to be instruments of the devil.
▪ These are debt securities that can be converted into stock.
service
▪ In more than half of the years between 1713 and 1785 debt service took up more than 40 percent of total revenue.
▪ The county faces a $ 5. 2 million debt service payment this fiscal year, Kelly said.
▪ Foreign exchange earnings were projected at US$8,998 million, of which US$2,227 million would be spent on debt service.
▪ As a federal spending program, Medicare now ranks fourth behind Social Security, defense and debt service.
▪ The resultant deferred debt service charges are included in debtors.
▪ Denver International must take in at least $ 304 million in revenues next year to cover annual debt service and operating costs.
▪ Kiyonga said that declining terms of trade and heavy debt service payments continued to prevent rapid economic rehabilitation.
▪ The North receives a kind of colonial tribute in debt service, whilst getting its raw materials at rock-bottom prices.
trap
▪ Susan George reveals the dynamic behind the debt trap.
▪ It became a more serious potential debt trap than running up bills at retailers.
▪ Job fears and the mortgage debt trap are failing to halt the housing slump.
world
▪ The Group linked third world debt and more favourable trade agreements to environmental issues.
▪ The arms trade increases Third World debt, which is a burden born by the poorest.
▪ Hastily Stevens laid down his book on Third World debt and straightened his reclining chair.
▪ Last year's figures were boosted by strong foreign-exchange earnings and a £122 million write-back from third world debt provisions.
▪ Labour would implement environmentally-progressive policies and press for reductions and possibly cancellations in third world debt.
▪ In the same way, the West continues to make large sums of money from Third World debt.
▪ Given third world debt problems and so on, many corporates are stronger credits than many banks.
▪ Labour will promote environmentally sustainable development and encourage new approaches to reduce Third World debt.
■ VERB
acknowledge
▪ While acknowledging their debt to Hearsay-II, they point out a number of differences.
▪ Years later, she acknowledged the debt she owed him for those early lessons in self-determination.
▪ Certainly, Bentham acknowledged his debt to Beccaria.
▪ Shelley has always acknowledged his debt to the late doctor.
▪ I want to acknowledge a personal debt to him.
▪ Brooks attended to every detail of his churches and Mackmurdo later acknowledged his debt to him as an exemplar of methodical thoroughness.
clear
▪ A cheque completely clearing the debt has been sent to Donovan's lawyers.
▪ His argument is that once we have cleared the debt we could buy a car with another loan.
▪ Borrowers were told that policies might not only clear their mortgage debt but might also give them an additional lump sum.
▪ As fast as it came in, it went out to clear his debt.
▪ With a personal loan you have to stick to a fixed schedule of repayments to clear the debt within a fixed period.
▪ If she won, her broker was to receive three times her normal fee, enough to clear her debt.
▪ So they did the switch, cleared their debts, and now £6 a month better off.
▪ Should you hang on to your cash or clear your debts?
cut
▪ Some firms will be told to sell off non-essential assets to cut their debt.
▪ Lower bill yields would cut the amount of debt to be retired at each auction, reducing borrowing requirements and the deficit.
▪ Profits were boosted by an interest charge slashed from £9.9 million to £4 million as a result of measures to cut debts.
▪ Trafalgar said it aims to cut debt and revamp its money-losing engineering and cruise line business.
▪ The Asda cash will be used to cut debts to about £100 million and allow the revamping and relocation of some stores.
▪ It has fought for two years to survive the recession, selling assets to cut spiralling debts.
fall
▪ The Society of Friends were equally severe about members who fell into debt.
▪ Those who fall deeply into personal debt become vulnerable to unflattering press reports.
increase
▪ Otherwise lawyers would involve her every day more and more; debts would increase more debts.
▪ Anything higher tends to increase the debt at a compound rate.
▪ Closing Dumenil Leble will increase Cerus's debt to 2 billion francs from 1 billion.
▪ If the assessed valuation of Los Angeles could be rapidly increased, its debt ceiling would be that much higher.
▪ A three-fifths vote would be required to increase the federal debt.
▪ They are demanding that Clinton accept much of their proposal before they will increase the debt ceiling limit.
incur
▪ We are trying to drag them here soas to get direct investment and to get foreign capital without incurring foreign debt.
▪ Under the city charter, Los Angeles was prohibited from incurring a debt greater than 15 percent of its assessed valuation.
▪ Mr McGovern also claims to be free of the banks, never having incurred much long-term debt.
▪ They must incur debt if they are to keep abreast.
▪ If one was punctual and could pay in the long run, why incur the debt at all?
▪ Loans would only incur future debt obligations, thereby hindering growth.
mount
▪ The previous mayor, Sanyu Ishii, disappeared suddenly after resigning in mid-June because of mounting gambling debts.
▪ He struggled on in the face of mounting debts, but his days as a Niagara entrepreneur were over.
owe
▪ We all owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we wish him well.
▪ We owe debts in a democracy if we want to keep it, and sometimes payment requires facing danger.
▪ Eliot at once sent him a cablegram, saying that he was one to whom all contemporary poets owed a debt.
▪ I never saw them again and yet I owe them a debt, a gratitude.
▪ Joseph Harker To whom do we owe the national debt?
▪ Although his stories are actually more historical adventure than romance, later romance authors owe him a great debt.
▪ The arguments are moral: the rich countries owe a debt for the ravaged resources of the Third World.
▪ Each of the Padres' two franchise postseason appearances has owed a debt to free-agent acquisitions.
pay
▪ Magistrates at Saxmundham ordered Nick to pay the debt with £12 costs.
▪ The agreement ends a year-long dispute over how to resolve paying the debt.
▪ He might have pledged it to pay his debts, or sold it.
▪ He lost all the money and drove me into a situation where it took me 10 years to pay off debts.
▪ They say they were left financially strapped or forced to forfeit their homes to pay off the debts.
▪ They say their business makes sense for winners who need immediate cash to pay off debts, start up businesses or invest.
▪ Foreign-exchange reserves have been maintained at their current low level only by failing to pay back some foreign debt.
▪ He paid off his debts and was named deputy chairman of the Conservative Party in 1985.
reduce
▪ Money paid by the defendant is appropriated first to reducing the principal debt and then towards the interest.
▪ The cash raised will be used to reduce Courtaulds's debt, he added.
▪ The budget surplus of A$8,107 million was the fourth consecutive surplus, and would be used to reduce overseas debt.
▪ Analysts said that with reduced debt and better cash flow, Hopewell can move ahead with projects it has started.
▪ It also remains to be seen what the Halls can do to reduce the club's debts of £6.5m.
▪ In accounting terms, this maneuver has the same effect as paying off the government securities and reducing the federal debt.
▪ Finally his estate was reduced by debts to £4 net.
▪ The endorsement fees should go a long way toward reducing her reported debt of 3 million pounds, about $ 5 million.
repay
▪ It has gone in repaying the overseas debt that we inherited from the last Labour Government.
▪ There would be a counterpart increase in consumer saving as the unpersuaded allowed their bank balances to grow and repaid their debts.
▪ Net proceeds will be used to repay short and long-term debt, refinance long term debt and for working capital.
▪ They do not have to repay the debts.
▪ Around NZ$4,200 million of this was allocated to repaying domestic and foreign debt.
▪ That generated plenty of dollars the government could use to repay debts.
▪ In spite of their neutrality some one might remember, and might repay the debt.
▪ It will use about half of the funds raised from the sale to repay existing debt.
sell
▪ The family were not rich; much of their land had been sold to pay the debts of successive wastrel sons.
▪ The Federal Farm Credit Banks are slated to sell debt.
▪ Your business will almost certainly be closed, your employees dismissed and most of your assets sold to cover your debts.
▪ It borrows money by selling its own debt and invests in student loans.
▪ All your property can be sold to recover debts.
▪ The two companies estimated that by selling the debt as securities, the surcharge to customers could eventually be reduced.
settle
▪ I'd like to whisk her away on my white charger, but I have to settle my debts first.
▪ Another gives generously yet never settles his debts.
▪ Tam again settled his debts, and again found himself with virtually nothing left.
▪ The settling of Tam's debts turned out to be less difficult than I had expected.
▪ It's for him to come down here and settle his debts, like everybody else in the valley.
▪ On his return, he borrowed money from Harriet to settle debts from his continental fling.
write
▪ Of the top 19 banks, 13 are expected to make losses this year as they write off bad debts.
▪ First, it was easy, because mentally they had already written those debts off.
▪ They may yet have to write the debt off.
▪ He was honest: he wrote his debt in the departmental notebook on the draining board.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be over your head in debt
be up to your ears in work/debt/problems etc
call in a loan/debt
▪ As the banks were squeezed, they called in loans and forced bankruptcy on their clients.
▪ As we have seen, if banks are short of cash they can call in loans from the discount houses.
▪ No banks to call in loans.
▪ The college takes 500 pupils from across the world and decided to call in debt collectors as a last resort.
clear a debt/loan
▪ It is coupled with Gade's third symphony, a work combining originality with clear debt to Mendelsshon's symphonic style.
deep in debt
▪ After my surgery, we were deep in debt with doctor bills.
▪ Besides, Tam was deep in debt to Richie again, and couldn't really afford to go anywhere.
▪ Her husband Peter is dying of cancer and the couple are deep in debt.
▪ Ron and Melanie found themselves out of work and deep in debt.
▪ The Charterhouse, also deep in debt, was passed over in silence.
▪ The firms involved have ended up bankrupt or deep in debt, healthy companies turned into cripples.
forgive a debt/loan
make good a debt/loss etc
▪ Their use should minimise water use to making good losses through evaporation.
meet a debt/cost/expense etc
▪ Barnardo's had to draw £1.7 million from its reserves to meet costs.
run up a debt/bill etc
▪ For Gieves the tailors, the extent to which clients indulged in running up bills regardless had become extremely serious.
▪ Having run up a debt of over £100,000, they're unlikely to be forgotten by Virgin Records in a hurry.
▪ He spent 3 months there, running up bills of £30,000, as yet unpaid.
▪ If my neighbours ran up a bill and refused to pay we would not be expected to pay it.
▪ It became a more serious potential debt trap than running up bills at retailers.
▪ Model customers run up bills and pay in installments, with the high interest that makes the business so lucrative.
▪ The problem of running up debts to pay for the elderly is straight-forward.
▪ They continue to run up bills and never build equity in their house.
sb has paid their debt to society
▪ After 20 years in jail, Murray feels he has paid his debt to society.
service a debt/loan
▪ The result is inadequate cash flow to service debt during the first critical years after purchase.
▪ The workers and peasants toil and sweat to service debts owed to the international bankers and multilateral agencies.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Debt is one of the main social problems of our time.
▪ He protected less profitable state farms by writing off their debts.
▪ It took us three years to pay off all our debts.
▪ Lenders must try and protect themselves against bad debts.
▪ The government now has debts of $2.5 billion.
▪ To pay the interest on our foreign debt, we will have to import less.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ However, the members will be personally liable to the company to the full extent for the debts of the company.
▪ In the past few years thousands of farmers have committed suicide because of escalating debts.
▪ Shareholders and creditors agree to restructure debts and payment schedules and, often, to swap debt for riskier equity.
▪ Since there are many different categories of debt issues, there are many different possible types of yield curves.
▪ The credit industry argues that the changes are needed to prevent people who can repay their debts from hiding behind bankruptcy law.
▪ The Issue Department frequently engages in open-market operations as part of the Bank's debt management.
▪ Unfortunately, widespread foot-dragging continues to act as a brake on debt relief.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Debt

Debt \Debt\, n. [OE. dette, F. dette, LL. debita, fr. L. debitus owed, p. p. of debere to owe, prop., to have on loan; de- + habere to have. See Habit, and cf. Debit, Due.]

  1. That which is due from one person to another, whether money, goods, or services; that which one person is bound to pay to another, or to perform for his benefit; thing owed; obligation; liability.

    Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt.
    --Shak.

    When you run in debt, you give to another power over your liberty.
    --Franklin.

  2. A duty neglected or violated; a fault; a sin; a trespass. ``Forgive us our debts.''
    --Matt. vi. 12.

  3. (Law) An action at law to recover a certain specified sum of money alleged to be due.
    --Burrill.

    Bond debt, Book debt, etc. See under Bond, Book, etc.

    Debt of nature, death.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
debt

late 13c., dette, from Old French dete, from Latin debitum "thing owed," neuter past participle of debere "to owe," originally, "keep something away from someone," from de- "away" (see de-) + habere "to have" (see habit (n.)). Restored spelling after c.1400. In Middle English, debt of the body (mid-14c.) was "that which spouses owe to each other, sexual intercourse."

Wiktionary
debt

n. 1 An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another. 2 The state or condition of owing something to another. 3 money that one person or entity owes or is required to pay to another, generally as a result of a loan or other financial transaction.

Related phrases:
WordNet
debt

  1. n. the state of owing something (especially money); "he is badly in debt"

  2. money or goods or services owed by one person to another

  3. an obligation to pay or do something

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Debt

Debt refers to something that is owed or due either physically or metaphorically. In the physical sense, the parties to debt are lenders (those who give) and borrowers (those who receive). In the metaphorical sense, debt refers to a moral obligation not based on physical value (e.g.: debt of gratitude).

Debt was the first form of commerce ( barter system) documented in human history and existed about 2,900 years prior to the invention of coinage. Today there are many examples of lenders of monetary debt that include sovereign nations, banks, credit card companies, payday loan providers, individuals, etc., who in many instances subject their borrowers to contractual terms that designate the amount and timing of repayments of the debt and that frequently include the payment of principal and interest.

Debt (game show)

Debt is an American game show hosted by Wink Martindale which aired on Lifetime from June 3, 1996 to August 14, 1998. The show featured contestants who were trying to earn money to get out of debt.

Debt (disambiguation)

A debt is that which one party owes to a second party.

Debt or The Debt may also refer to:

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "debt".

By abreacting each day any errors we may have made, we prevent our purgatorial debt from accumulating.

John Adams, by contrast, had neither debts nor slaves and all his life abhorred the idea of either.

OF THE MULTIPLE ISSUES in contention between Britain and the new United States of America, and that John Adams had to address as minister, nearly all were holdovers from the Treaty of Paris, agreements made but not resolved, concerning debts, the treatment of Loyalists, compensation for slaves and property confiscated by the British, and the continued presence of British troops in America.

For Adams, who had argued emphatically at Paris for full repayment of American debt and had never deviated from that view, American reluctance, or inability, to make good on its obligations was a disgrace and politically a great mistake.

If Adams was concerned about making ends meet, Washington had had to arrange a loan to cover personal debts and the expense of moving to New York.

Writing to thank Rush for the volume, Adams assured him it would put mankind still deeper in his debt.

IV A-HUNTING OF THE DEER If civilization owes a debt of gratitude to the self-sacrificing sportsmen who have cleared the Adirondack regions of catamounts and savage trout, what shall be said of the army which has so nobly relieved them of the terror of the deer?

His labors were of the greatest value to the overworked head of the Aldine es-tablishment, and Aldus always recognized his debt of gratitude.

The Canaanites, along with the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Moabites, the Aramaeans and others recalled the debts to their gods and offered their children as burnt offerings.

That had been their bargain: Elinor would spend one night alone with Aston, and in return, he would withdraw his petition for repayment of their debt to him for one full year.

You refer to your instructions to me in an earlier letter about get216 Julia Alvarez ting the Ayuntamiento to pay their debt to me.

With the Ayuntamiento debt outstanding andwiththe stipend I am sending you, there is nothing left for frivolities.

Bligh striking out the debts from her ledger-book, her strong-box becoming a catch-basin for the new money, overflowing and spilling out gleaming rivulets down the street to the bankside coffee-merchants, and thence down the Thames into the wide.

But I owe a considerable debt to Guli Sarahi, and going with her to Bokhara may be a small repayment.

Shield of Laigin should come to me easily, for the bouchal who now rules there acknowledges that he owes me a debt for taking to a large measure his part against Rome.