Debt
nounA sum of money that one person or organisation owes to another.
How to spell debt
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce debt
What does debt mean?
- nounA sum of money that one person or organisation owes to another.
Debt in a sentence
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She paid off her debt last year.
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He has cleared his student debt.
Where does debt come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word comes from the Latin debere, meaning 'to owe', which was formed from de 'from' and habere 'to have', so its literal sense was something like 'to have from someone'. It entered English in the 1200s through Old French, where it was spelled dette, and early English writers spelled it that way too. The silent 'b' was added later by scholars who wanted the spelling to echo the Latin root debitum, even though the letter was never pronounced in English. The same Latin debere lies behind related words such as 'debit', 'due', and 'duty', which all carry the idea of something owed. That deliberately reinstated, silent 'b' is exactly the trap that makes 'debt' so easy to misspell as 'det' or 'dett'.
How the word is built
- deb- (from Latin debere: to owe)
- -t (silent, from the Latin spelling)
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