debit
Americannoun
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debits
plural
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the recording or an entry of debt in an account.
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Bookkeeping.
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that which is entered in an account as a debt; a recorded item of debt.
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any entry or the total shown on the debit side.
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the left-hand side of an account on which such entries are made (opposed to credit).
-
-
an undesirable or disadvantageous feature.
verb (used with object)
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debits,
present (3rd person singular)
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debited,
past participle, past
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debiting
present participle
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to charge with a debt.
The store debited her account for the purchase.
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to charge as a debt.
The store debited the purchase to her account.
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Bookkeeping. to enter upon the debit side of an account.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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debitsimple
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debitssimple
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have debitedperfect
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has debitedperfect
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am debitingprogressive
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are debitingprogressive
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is debitingprogressive
-
have been debitingperfect progressive
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has been debitingperfect progressive
Past
-
debitedsimple
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had debitedperfect
-
was debitingprogressive
-
were debitingprogressive
-
had been debitingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of debit
1400–50; late Middle English < Old French < Latin dēbitum something owed; see debt
Explanation
A debit is a payment made or charged, or the notation of the amount charged. Trying to track down the mysterious $2 debit to your bank account is almost never fruitful, but you’re bound to do it anyway. From the Latin debere, meaning “to owe,” and just one i away from its more blunt cousin debt, a debit seems like a little word. But add an s to the end, and those charges really add up. You can use the word debit as a verb — “to debit your account,” or a noun — “the debit on your account,” but either way, a debit means you have less money than you had before!
Vocabulary lists containing debit
"Principles of Business," Vocabulary from Chapter 17
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de-
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Century 21 Accounting, 9e, Chapters 1-3
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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:
She found the property on Google and was making payments by getting prepaid debit cards and transferring the code by phone.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
Nine in 10 users of mobile wallets have their debit card loaded as their default payment method on their phone, with the remainder having registered their credit card.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
Bank of America’s credit and debit card spending per household rose 5% year-over-year, down from 6.3% in June.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Starbucks' estimated credit and debit card payment volume fell 17 percent from May to June, according to local data platform firm IGAWorks.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
All three of us have personal debit cards.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
It may also involve traditional accounting activities, such as tracking payments in a general ledger, involving debits and credits and double-entry accounting, as well as accounts payable activities of making payments.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026
The ledger of Newman’s youth had mostly debits for the future painter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025
According to Chabrier, the new rule keeps pace with the change in overdraft protection as paper checks have been replaced with instant debits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2024
This month’s overall inflation figure looking back at April is expected to show a bigger drop as the lower energy price cap is taken into account, even as households' direct debits remain higher.
From BBC ● May 22, 2024
I took the disk to my room, installed the program on my laptop and whizzed through the tutorial, and in no time flat, I was entering debits and listing credits.
From "Liar, Liar" by Gary Paulsen
The bank fixed the error and gave him a deposit slip that read: “Correction, teller debited wrong account.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
The cash helped her cover expenses until payday, when the app debited the borrowed $100, plus $18 for the fee and tip.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 23, 2024
In a table, the draft report detailed hundreds of debited transactions entered by "non-branch users", who the report explained "can access branches remotely for support purposes".
From BBC ● Mar. 28, 2024
Payments that are automatically debited are expected to resume on the first due date after payments are again required.
From New York Times ● Jul. 18, 2021
"But I prefer to have it debited and ... and ... and all you say, but with Boris," cried Billy, angrily throwing her carnations on the floor.
From The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 by Various
Warren also said that Bilt’s practice of immediately debiting rent payments may have run afoul of the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act’s disclosure requirements for credit cards.
From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2026
But the mechanism by which the government sells its debt, debiting bank reserves held at the Fed in exchange for the new bills and bonds, could still test the resilience of some smaller institutions.
From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2023
Last month, the bureau punished Enova, which runs online lender CashNetUSA, for failing to honor promised loan extensions and for debiting customers’ bank accounts without authorization.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 6, 2019
This ability “endeared him to the Vatican,” because he could move church funds around by debiting an account in one branch and crediting one in another, with coins never changing hands.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 6, 2015
It’s a draft for one hundred pounds on the Bank of Montreal, and it’s a secret; but I’m not debiting the estate with it.
From Lorimer of the Northwest by Alfred James Dewey
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.
