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
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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:
Unsecured creditors of bankrupt Dish Wireless are seeking to appoint an independent trustee and disqualify the company’s legal adviser, White & Case.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
Woking Borough Council declared itself effectively bankrupt in June 2023 following a series of borrowing and investment decisions.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026
The increase is not based on fears about countries "going bankrupt".
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
In July, Amex got rid of its $100 Saks Fifth Avenue credit after the company went bankrupt.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026
In the subsequent flight to safety, the early subprime lenders were denied capital and promptly went bankrupt en masse.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the authors write, tried to ensure that only “honest but unfortunate” debtors benefited from bankruptcy’s by directing “professional bankrupts . . . to restitution or jail.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● 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
There are about 20 basic bank accounts available, but now only Barclays allows undischarged bankrupts to sign up.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2012
The customer who plays zero-sum games against them may win from time to time but never systematically, and never so spectacularly that he bankrupts the casino.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
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 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 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 nation’s electric utilities aren’t stepping up because the last two AP1000 units, completed over 2023-24, came in way over budget and took more than a decade to finish, bankrupting Westinghouse in the process.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
His comments follow a series of warnings over the recent surge in investment in AI, with some claiming the sector amounts to a bubble set to burst, rocking markets and bankrupting companies.
From BBC ● Jan. 27, 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
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.
