DictionaryAI

debt

noun
DET/dɛt/

Pluraldebts

4 meanings of debt

Practice

  1. 1
    money owednouncountable or uncountable
    Money that a person or organization owes and must pay to another, usually arising from a loan or other financial transaction.

    The family struggled for years to clear the debt on their home.

    Rising interest rates made the national debt much harder to service.

    UsageA debt is one sum owed; debt with no article is the total you owe. You pay off or clear a debt.

    Similarliability, loan, arrears

    Note

    Its verbs are businesslike. Governments contract and service debts, buy-out firms pile debt onto companies, and a new regime may repudiate one, as the Bolsheviks do with the Tsar's four-billion-dollar debt in Upton Sinclair's Jimmie Higgins (1919). Interest is usually what makes carrying a debt costly.

  2. 2
    state of owingnoununcountable
    The state or condition of owing something to another person or party.

    Years of careless overspending left them in serious debt.

    He felt the weight of debt hanging over every choice he made.

    UsageUsually in debt (deep in debt, get into debt). With a possessive, in your debt usually means grateful to you.

    Similarindebtedness

    Oppositecredit

  3. 3
    duty to someonenouncountable
    Something owed to another as a duty: an act to be done for them, an attitude to be held toward them, or a thing to be given.

    He repaid his debt to his mentor by guiding younger colleagues for free.

    The nation owes a lasting debt to the volunteers who rebuilt the town.

    UsageUsually a debt to someone, often with of naming what is owed: a debt of gratitude. You owe or repay it.

    Similarobligation, duty

    Note

    Hawthorne's "debt of confidence" in The Scarlet Letter (1850) is not a sum of money: Hester means the truth she has long kept from the minister and now resolves to tell him at last.

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    noun
    A legal action brought to recover a specific sum of money claimed to be due from another party.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of debt apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

Debt comes from Middle English dette, borrowed from Old French dete, from Latin dēbitum ('what is owed, a duty'), from dēbeō ('I owe'), itself a contraction of parts meaning 'to have from.' It is a doublet of debit, and the silent 'b' in the modern spelling was added to match the Latin dēbitum.

Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 7 facts