bankruptcy

American  

[bangk-ruhpt-see, -ruhp-see] / ˈbæŋk rʌpt si, -rəp si /

noun

bankruptcies plural

1. the state of being or becoming bankrupt.

2. utter ruin, failure, depletion, or the like.

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bankruptcy British  

/ ˈbæŋkrʌptsɪ, -rəptsɪ /

noun

1. the state, condition, or quality of being or becoming bankrupt

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bankruptcy Cultural  

1. Legally declared insolvency, or inability to pay creditors.

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If an individual or a corporation declares bankruptcy, a court will appoint an official to make an inventory of the individual's or corporation's assets and to establish a schedule by which creditors can be partially repaid what is owed them.

An individual who is lacking a specific resource or quality is sometimes said to be bankrupt, as in intellectually bankrupt or morally bankrupt.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• prebankruptcy
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• bankruptcies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bankruptcy

First recorded in 1690–1700; bankrupt + -cy

Compare meaning

How does bankruptcy compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• insolvency vs. bankruptcy

Explanation

Bankruptcy is a state of being bankrupt, or having no money to pay back debts that you owe. When you file for bankruptcy, you are giving up all your possessions and declaring, essentially, that you don't have any money left. During the recession, lots of businesses had to file for bankruptcy or declare by law that they were unable to pay off their debts. The ending of the word bankruptcy is a tricky one. Remember that it ends in tcy.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bankruptcy bankruptcies

America’s first permanent federal bankruptcy law, enacted in 1898, was designed for businesses, but individuals discovered its benefits, as Mary Eschelbach Hansen and Bradley A. Hansen explain in “Bankrupt in America.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

In 2011, a solar energy manufacturer named Solyndra declared bankruptcy.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026

The court ruled that Johnson & Johnson, a financially healthy company, didn’t belong in bankruptcy court and forced the case back into ordinary litigation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

If the restructuring went ahead, it would be the largest in the history of the automotive industry, eclipsing the 50,000 job cuts General Motors made after it declared bankruptcy in 2009.

From Barron's ● Jul. 24, 2026

Everywhere you looked someone was filing for bankruptcy, or throwing his belongings into a U-Haul to find another job up in the rustbelt or snowbelt or crimebelt from which he thought he had escaped.

From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger

The Wall Street Journal conducted an analysis last year and found that families have lost at least $190 million in 16 bankruptcies at continuing-care retirement communities, wiping out the savings of more than 1,000 families.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 5, 2026

Recent private credit fund bankruptcies revealed poor collateral management, fraud, and inconsistent bank disclosures, raising risk concerns.

From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026

Wars, diseases, revolutions, depressions, bankruptcies, financial crises and natural disasters all swept through history and wiped out wealth.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026

In his book, “Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America,” Ballou examined large leveraged buyouts and found that many of which resulted in bankruptcies.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 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

Related Words

• default
• disaster
• failure
• insolvency
• liquidation
• loss