Definition of bankrupt

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< bankroll

Banks, Joseph >

bank·rupt    (bngkrpt, -rpt) KEY 

NOUN:

1. Law A debtor that, upon voluntary petition or one invoked by the debtor's creditors, is judged legally insolvent. The debtor's remaining property is then administered for the creditors or is distributed among them.
2. A person who is totally lacking in a specified resource or quality: an intellectual bankrupt.

ADJECTIVE:

1. 1. Having been legally declared financially insolvent.
   2. Financially ruined; impoverished.
2. 1. Depleted of valuable qualities or characteristics: a morally and ethically bankrupt politician.
   2. Totally depleted; destitute: was bankrupt of new ideas.
   3. Being in a ruined state: a bankrupt foreign policy.

TRANSITIVE VERB:
bank·rupt·ed, bank·rupt·ing, bank·rupts

1. To cause to become financially bankrupt.
2. To ruin: an administration that bankrupted its credibility by seeking to manipulate the news.

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ETYMOLOGY:
French banqueroute, from Italian banca rotta, broken counter (from the practice of breaking the counters of bankrupt bankers) : banca, moneychanger's table ; see banco + rotta, past participle of rompere, to break (from Latin rumpere; see reup- in Indo-European roots)

OTHER FORMS:
bankrupt·cy  (-rpt-s, -rp-s) KEY (Noun), bank·ruptive(Adjective)