/ det; NAmE / noun
1.
[ C ] a sum of money that sb owes :
I need to pay off all my debts before I leave the country.
an outstanding debt of £300
He had run up credit card debts of thousands of dollars.
2.
[ U ] the situation of owing money, especially when you cannot pay :
He died heavily in debt .
The club is £4 million in debt .
We were poor but we never got into debt .
It's hard to stay out of debt when you are a student.
a country's foreign debt burden
—see also bad debt
3.
[ C , usually sing. ] the fact that you should feel grateful to sb because they have helped you or been kind to you :
to owe a debt of gratitude to sb
I would like to acknowledge my debt to my teachers.
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IDIOMS
- be in sb's debt
••
WORD ORIGIN
Middle English dette : from Old French , based on Latin debitum something owed, past participle of debere owe. The spelling change in French and English was by association with the Latin word.