debt
noun
Simple meaning
Money or goods or services owed by one person to another.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dehtIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɛt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
finance
Money or goods or services owed by one person to another
finance
Money that one person or entity owes or is required to pay to another, generally as a result of a loan or other financial transaction.
The state or condition of owing something to another.
The state of owing something (especially money)
An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Money or goods or services owed by one person to another
Used this way, debt is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a financial use: it has a settled meaning in accounting and business, where precision matters more than colour.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
- Business/professional
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use debt
- “He is badly in debt.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A person who owes a creditor.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The maximum borrowing power of a governmental entity.
A written promise to repay a debt.
The maximum borrowing power of a governmental entity.
Debt to be paid by installments.
The debt of the national government (as distinguished from the debts of individuals and businesses and political subdivisions).
A limit set by Congress beyond which the national debt cannot rise.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A written promise to repay a debt.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.