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n. 1. Law A person, business, or organization legally declared insolvent because of inability to pay debts. 2. A person who is totally lacking in a specified resource or quality: an intellectual bankrupt. adj. 1. a. Having been legally declared insolvent. b. Financially ruined; impoverished. 2. a. Depleted of valuable qualities or characteristics: a morally and ethically bankrupt politician. b. Totally depleted; destitute: was bankrupt of new ideas. c. Being in a ruined state: a bankrupt foreign policy. tr.v. 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. [French banqueroute, from Italian banca rotta, broken counter (from the practice of breaking the counters of bankrupt bankers) : banca, moneychanger's table; see BANK2 + rotta, feminine of rotto, past participle of rompere, to break (from Latin rumpere; see reup- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots).] |
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