Other forms: collaterals
Collateral is something valuable promised to a lender if you cannot repay. Put up collateral, secured against collateral, no collateral.
A mortgage is the standard example: the house is the collateral. Loans with collateral are called secured and are cheaper, because the lender risks less. As an adjective, collateral means running alongside — a collateral branch of a family — and collateral damage is the military euphemism for civilians killed near a target, which is one of the most criticised phrases in English.
1nouncollateralSomething valuable promised to a lender if you cannot repay.
“The house was the collateral and they nearly lost it.”
2adjectiverunningRunning alongside the main thing.
“The air strike hit its target, but the collateral damage to nearby homes was severe.”
collateral is a security, or something alongside.
Medieval Latin collateralis is col-, together with, plus latus, a side — side by side. Collateral security runs alongside the loan, and a collateral relative runs alongside the main family line.
Latin
col- — together with
Medieval Latin
collaterālis
English, today
collateral
Built from
Recorded since c.1378, from Old French -, from Medieval Latin collaterālis, from Latin col- (“together with”) (a form of con-) + the stem of latus (“side”). by surface analysis, col- + lateral.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA