foreclosure
Americannoun
-
foreclosures
plural
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of foreclosure
Explanation
When a homeowner can't afford to pay her mortgage, she might face foreclosure, which is when a bank repossesses a borrower's house. A bank most often starts foreclosure proceedings against someone who's taken out a loan to buy a house when that person stops making monthly payments. The agreement a borrower makes when she gets a bank mortgage is that she'll pay a certain amount of money every month, and failing to do it means risking foreclosure. The word foreclosure comes from the Latin words fors, "out," and clore "to shut."
Vocabulary lists containing foreclosure
Case Closed: Clud, Clus
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American History II
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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:
Many in the second cohort had mortgages with relatively high interest rates and then ended up in foreclosure, said Jeffrey Zabel, one of the authors of the paper.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 16, 2026
The decades-old winery is now facing a foreclosure sale to cover a $37-million outstanding loan, according to the Press Democrat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Examples include funds to avoid eviction or foreclosure, receive medical care, and pay for funeral expenses or tuition.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 3, 2026
County officials said at the time that the foreclosure sale was too good to pass up.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
“Umm...right, so the house went into foreclosure in 2009. That’s a year before he was spotted panhandling in the city.”
From "Odd One Out" by Nic Stone
Months later, he signed AB 238, a Harabedian bill that provided for 12 months of mortgage relief and banned late fees, foreclosures and negative reports to credit bureaus for homeowners who receive it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2026
We don’t have to live in a world where people profit from tragedy, be it wildfires or a child with cancer, housing foreclosures or weapons manufacturing.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026
Government agencies have also wound down some Covid-19-era programs for helping distressed borrowers, contributing to the rise in foreclosures.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
The figure is also the highest since the first quarter of 2020, when pandemic-era mortgage-relief measures and stimulus payments first led to a huge drop in foreclosures.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
The unemployment caused home foreclosures, leading to shortfalls in property tax receipts, and therefore holes in the school budget.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
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.
