foreclosure
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of foreclosure
Explanation
When a homeowner can't afford to pay her mortgage, she might face foreclosure, which is when a bank repossesses a borrower's house. A bank most often starts foreclosure proceedings against someone who's taken out a loan to buy a house when that person stops making monthly payments. The agreement a borrower makes when she gets a bank mortgage is that she'll pay a certain amount of money every month, and failing to do it means risking foreclosure. The word foreclosure comes from the Latin words fors, "out," and clore "to shut."
Vocabulary lists containing foreclosure
Case Closed: Clud, Clus
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American History II
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The Great Depression and The New Deal
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Skeletal remains were discovered inside a Connecticut home sold through a foreclosure auction—an extreme example of what buyers can encounter when purchasing homes this way.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
The Cashes never responded to the foreclosure complaint filed against them, according to court records.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
Thompson said his home fell into foreclosure after he took out second and third mortgages.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
A landmarked downtown Los Angeles apartment building designed by famed Los Angeles architect John Parkinson is on the market as its owners face foreclosure.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
From cancer patients struggling to pay health-care premiums and from people who’d lost their homes to foreclosure.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
The figure is also the highest since the first quarter of 2020, when pandemic-era mortgage-relief measures and stimulus payments first led to a huge drop in foreclosures.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
“They’re talking about a lot more foreclosures and a lot of loan restructuring.”
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2026
This was the 11th consecutive month of rising housing foreclosures.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 7, 2026
Don’t expect dramatic drops in home prices or a wave of foreclosures.
From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026
The various bonds you make from those loans will go bad not as the loans go bad but months later, after a lot of tedious foreclosures and bankruptcies and forced sales.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
