Other forms: bankruptcies
Bankruptcy is the legal state of being unable to pay your debts. Declare bankruptcy, file for bankruptcy, come out of bankruptcy.
In Britain bankruptcy applies to individuals, and companies go into liquidation or administration instead — the American system uses bankruptcy for both, and Chapter 11 is its best-known form. Bankruptcy is a court process with real consequences for credit, directorships and some professions. The word is also used figuratively: moral bankruptcy, intellectual bankruptcy. Note bankrupt, both the adjective and the person.
1nounbankruptcyThe legal state of being unable to pay your debts.
“Bankruptcy took about a year and cost him the house.”
2nouncompleteA complete lack of something valuable.
“The whole reply showed a certain intellectual bankruptcy.”
bankruptcy is a legal or moral state.
Italian banca rotta means broken bench — the moneychanger's table, broken to mark that he could no longer trade. Bank and bankruptcy are the same bench, one still standing and one smashed.
From bankrupt + cy, replacing earlier bankruptship.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA