bankrupt
Americannoun
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bankrupts
plural
-
Law. a person who upon their own petition or that of their creditors is adjudged insolvent by a court and whose property is administered for and divided among their creditors under a bankruptcy law.
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any insolvent debtor; a person unable to satisfy any just claims made upon them.
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a person who is lacking in a particular thing or quality.
a moral bankrupt.
adjective
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Law. subject to or under legal process because of insolvency; insolvent.
- Synonyms:
- impoverished, destitute
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at the end of one's resources; lacking (usually followed by of orin ).
bankrupt of compassion;
bankrupt in good manners.
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related to the act or process of being adjudged insolvent by a court and having one's property andministered for and divided among one's creditors.
verb (used with object)
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bankrupts,
present (3rd person singular)
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bankrupted,
past participle, past
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bankrupting
present participle
noun
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a person adjudged insolvent by a court, his or her property being transferred to a trustee and administered for the benefit of his creditors
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any person unable to discharge all his or her debts
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a person whose resources in a certain field are exhausted or nonexistent
a spiritual bankrupt
adjective
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adjudged insolvent
-
financially ruined
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depleted in resources or having completely failed
spiritually bankrupt
-
(foll by of) lacking
bankrupt of intelligence
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bankruptsimple
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bankruptssimple
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have bankruptedperfect
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has bankruptedperfect
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am bankruptingprogressive
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are bankruptingprogressive
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is bankruptingprogressive
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have been bankruptingperfect progressive
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has been bankruptingperfect progressive
Past
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bankruptedsimple
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had bankruptedperfect
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was bankruptingprogressive
-
were bankruptingprogressive
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had been bankruptingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bankrupt
First recorded in 1525–35; from Medieval Latin banca rupta “bank broken”; replacing adaptations of Italian banca rota and French banqueroute in same sense
Explanation
You might not have any money in your pocket, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you are bankrupt. It takes a legal proceeding for the courts to declare a person bankrupt — or officially unable to pay his debts. Despite the word bank in bankrupt, the word can be used to describe an entity that is short of something other than money. A bankrupt nation might not have the natural resources for its people to produce goods. A nearby country that could easily help but chooses not to may be considered morally bankrupt because of its lack of compassion. Or, maybe there is more to the story. That nation might fear that helping another will bankrupt its own shaky economy. (That is how bankrupt can be used as a verb.)
Vocabulary lists containing bankrupt
Figurative Language in King's "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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Make a Break for It: Rupt
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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:
There are no restrictions on a person who is bankrupt working as an employee of a company.
From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2026
Google co-founder Larry Page reportedly told employees that he’s “willing to go bankrupt rather than lose this race.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
In 1998, he left his vice president role at Compaq Computer — the world’s largest PC maker at the time — to join a nearly bankrupt Apple.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 29, 2026
Former Liverpool and England player turned pundit Jamie Carragher faces being declared bankrupt over an unpaid tax bill, said to be in the region of £700,000 and £800,000.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
Like Bell Telephone was going to go bankrupt because of one phone call from Minneapolis to Long Island in the middle of the night.
From "The Wednesday Wars" by Gary D. Schmidt
"It's sad to see childhood legends turn into moral bankrupts," Heraskevych said.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
“If it so happens that it bankrupts or puts these individuals and entities in financial peril, so be it.”
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 14, 2021
The fight almost bankrupts the rural town of Shelby, Mont., which borrows heavily to stage it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2020
“Not doing so bankrupts the principles, leaving them worthless for all,” Mr. Orr said in September.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2015
"Take me away from here," she said, "you bankrupts."
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
It bankrupted the director, and he abandoned Justin's mother Caroline, leaving her with all his debts.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
Ruinous competition amid fixed costs bankrupted dozens of airlines in the 1980s and 1990s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026
The man who shot Abe, Tetsuya Yamagami, said he had held a grudge against the prime minister because of his ties with the Unification Church, which had bankrupted his family.
From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2026
The First Punic War spanned 23 years and nearly bankrupted both sides.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026
“You must have bankrupted your kingdom for such a reward, my friend.”
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
Perhaps most evil are the acquisitions of hospitals for the sole purpose of bankrupting them and selling off assets to line someone else’s pockets.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 26, 2026
The BOJ’s interest-rate increases may help by bankrupting some of Japan’s zombie companies that sop up resources with no hope of turning a profit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 20, 2026
Hastings and Sarandos’ enterprise was largely responsible for bankrupting the then-dominant video rental chain, Blockbuster.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2025
If successful, Energy Transfer’s $300 million lawsuit may end up bankrupting the advocacy group as a whole, both domestically and internationally.
From Slate ● Feb. 26, 2025
Leonardo is now in Rome, where a new pope from the Medici family—Pope Leo X—is busy bankrupting the Vatican by commissioning massive new works of art.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
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.
