English Lexicon

Bad Debts

/bæd dɛpts/
nounCEFR B2 (Upper)Top #1500 frequency
Full Thesaurus

Comprehensive Definitions & Senses

2 senses
As noun
  1. 1

    Debts that are considered uncollectible and are written off as a loss.

    "The company had to declare several accounts as bad debts after the clients went bankrupt."
  2. 2

    Loans or credit that are unlikely to be repaid.

    "Investors are wary of businesses with high levels of bad debts."

Thesaurus & Semantic Spectrum

Antonyms & Contrasting Words (1)

Linguistic Origin & Historical Etymology

The term 'bad debts' originates from the combination of 'bad', derived from Old English 'bædd' meaning 'evil' or 'unfavorable', and 'debts', from Latin 'debitum', meaning 'something owed'. The phrase has evolved in financial contexts to denote amounts owed that are unlikely to be collected.

Quick Vocabulary Retention Check

Which of the following is the closest synonym for "Bad Debts"?

10 Global Lexicons: How "Bad Debts" is said worldwide

Click any language below to open its dedicated Language to English dictionary page with native script & transliteration

Thesaurus & Synonyms Graph

Explore Nuanced Synonyms for "Bad Debts"

Discover exact matches, context-specific alternatives, and antonyms with intensity ratings in the VocabDictionary Thesaurus.

View "Bad Debts" Synonym Map