subprime

[ suhb-prahym ]

/ sʌbˈpraɪm /

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adjective

being of less than top quality: a subprime grade of steel.

being below a prime rate: banks engaging in subprime lending.

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Origin of subprime

sub- + prime

Words nearby subprime

subpolar, subpopulation, sub-post office, subpotency, subprimal, subprime, subprincipal, subprofessional, subprogram, subpurlin, subquarter

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use subprime in a sentence

For households with subprime credit scores, credit options may be limited to high-cost options such as payday loans.
The expanded child tax credit is working. Let’s make it permanent.|Michelle Singletary|September 28, 2021|Washington Post
Amid the subprime loan crisis, foreclosed-upon moms bore lower-weight babies.
What makes one mom different from another|Abigail Tucker|June 4, 2021|Washington Post
They chose to put some of that risk into the predatory subprime lending market which steered borrowers—disproportionately people of color—to buy or refinance their loans, often at higher rates than they qualified for.
The Free Market is Dead: What Will Replace It?|Chris Hughes|April 26, 2021|Time
So, in the subprime-mortgage crisis, we believed that mortgages were always going to just pay out regularly forever, when it actually turned out that the package of mortgages were actually a terrible asset.
Does Advertising Actually Work? (Part 2: Digital) (Ep. 441)|Stephen J. Dubner|November 26, 2020|Freakonomics

He led a turnaround at the bank after a near crippling 2008 acquisition of troubled subprime lender Countrywide Financial, attracting Warren Buffett as a major investor along the way.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan Is Still Optimistic About the Economy—and the Lure of Cash|Eben Shapiro|August 9, 2020|Time
Eventually, Cuomo entered the Clinton administration, and as HUD secretary sowed the seeds of the subprime mortgage catastrophe.
Andrew Cuomo’s Do-Gooders Done Wrong|Lloyd Green|July 28, 2014|DAILY BEAST
“These are not subprime mortgages,” he said of his portfolio that stretched from shipyards to oil rigs.
The Rise And Fall Of Brazilian Billionaire Eike Batista|Mac Margolis|November 9, 2013|DAILY BEAST
Hedge funds it owned, which had employed vast leverage to bet on subprime bonds, loudly blew up in the summer of 2007.
Let’s All Stop Feeling Sorry for JPMorgan Chase Having to Pay Billions|Daniel Gross|October 21, 2013|DAILY BEAST
“Right after the subprime mortgage crisis, it was all really up in the air,” he says.
Ramen Burger’s Inventor Talks About the Food Craze Eclipsing the Cronut|Marlow Stern|August 9, 2013|DAILY BEAST
Imagine, for instance: We had a governor of New York who was looking into the subprime mortgages, in D.C. testifying on that.
Daniel Ellsberg: Edward Snowden Is a Hero and We Need More Whistleblowers|Daniel Ellsberg|June 10, 2013|DAILY BEAST

British Dictionary definitions for subprime

subprime

/ (ˈsʌbˌpraɪm) US /

adjective

(of a loan) made to a borrower with a poor credit rating, usually at a high rate of interest

noun

a loan made to a borrower with a poor credit rating

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012