bankrupt
Americannoun
-
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
-
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:
Former England internationals David James, Wes Brown and Lee Hendrie have all been declared bankrupt, while former Liverpool team-mate Emile Heskey lost a legal battle over an unpaid £1.637m tax bill in 2024.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 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
As Ernest Hemingway wrote a century ago: One goes bankrupt two ways — gradually, and then suddenly.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 24, 2026
Eventually, they were able to buy a bankrupt silk-weaving factory, Chen said in a speech last year, turning it into a thriving business.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
“When I built the cable company, in the early stages, I was making deals where I would have been bankrupt if I hadn’t pulled it off. I had confidence that I could make it work.”
From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
“If it so happens that it bankrupts or puts these individuals and entities in financial peril, so be it,” the attorney general said in an interview when the case was filed.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 1, 2022
“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
The amount in damages that creditors are seeking from former Enviva executives after a series of ill-fated wood-pellet trades bankrupted the green-energy giant.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
It bankrupted the director, and he abandoned Justin's mother Caroline, leaving her with all his debts.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
Margin borrowing recently hit a record, but it’s a far cry from levels that bankrupted many in the 1929 crash.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
In its defense, Cox argued that internet service providers could be bankrupted by huge lawsuits for copyright infringement, which they said they did not cause and could not prevent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2026
The Thirty Years’ War, which had pummeled and bankrupted much of Europe, was finally winding down, and intellectual life flourished.
From "The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science" by Joyce Sidman
The center filed lawsuits aimed at bankrupting Klan organizations, unsympathetic defendants that made easy targets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026
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
“I’m getting calls from the East Coast asking me if people should invest in bankrupting L.A. County,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 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.
