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August 01, 2020 Word of the Day

debt /ˈdɛt/ noun
debt
/ˈdɛt/
noun

plural debts

An anxious couple worried about their debt
An anxious couple worried about their debt
Definition of DEBT

1 [count] : an amount of money that you owe to a person, bank, company, etc.

  • He is trying to pay off gambling debts.

  • The company has run up huge debts.

  • Their debts are piling up.

  • She's finally paid off her mortgage debt. [=the money that she owed the bank to pay for her house]

  • the nation's growing foreign debt [=the amount of money that a country owes other countries]

  • Most of his debts are consumer debts. [=most of his debts are from buying things at stores]

2 [noncount] : the state of owing money to someone or something

  • He is drowning in a sea of debt. [=he owes a very large amount of money]

  • a mountain of debt

  • He's been working three jobs in an attempt to get out of debt.

  • The company was in debt but is now turning a profit.

  • I am deep/heavily in debt.

  • I'm thousands of dollars in debt.

  • She went into debt to pay for college.

  • I'm worried that we will fall into debt.

  • banks with millions of dollars of bad debt [=banks that have loaned millions of dollars that will not be repaid]

  • a debt-ridden country [=a country with more debt than it can pay]

3 [count] : the fact that you have been influenced or helped by someone or something — usually singular

  • The photographer has acknowledged a/his debt to Andy Warhol. [=the photographer has said that his work was influenced by the photographs made by Andy Warhol]

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