debt

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the state of owing something, especially money

   Our household was badly in debt.

2. 2
   noun

   An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another.

   Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt / Of this proud king, who studies day and night / To answer all the debt he owes to you / Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.

3. 3
   noun

   The state or condition of owing something to another.

   I am in your debt.

4. 4
   noun

   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.

   Bolsheviki had repudiated the four-billion-dollar debt which the government of the Tsar had contracted with the bankers.

5. 5
   noun

   an obligation to pay or do something

6. 6
   noun

   money or goods or services owed by one person to another

7. 7
   noun

   An action at law to recover a certain specified sum of money alleged to be due

Etymology

From Middle English dette, dett, borrowed from Old French dete (French dette), from Medieval Latin dēbita, from Latin dēbitum (“what is owed, a debt, a duty”), neuter of dēbitus, perfect passive participle of dēbeō (“to owe”), contraction of *dehibeō (“I have from”), from de (“from”) + habeō (“to have”). Doublet of debit. The unpronounced "b" in the modern English spelling is a Latinisation from the Latin etymon dēbitum.