Indebtedness

Debt is money owed by one party, the borrower or debtor, for a second party, the lender or creditor. The borrower may be a sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. The lender may be a bank, credit card company, payday loan provider, or an individual. Debt is generally subject to contractual terms regarding the amount and timing of repayments of principal and interest. A simple way to understand interest is to see it as the "rent" a person owes on money that they have borrowed, to the bank from which they borrowed the money. Loans, bonds, notes, and mortgages are all types of debt. The term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value. For example, in Western cultures, a person who has been helped by a second person is sometimes said to owe a "debt of gratitude" to the second person.

The English term "debt" was first used in the late 13th century. The term "debt" comes from "dette, from Old French dete, from Latin debitum "thing owed," neuter past participle of debere "to owe," originally, "keep something away from someone," from de- "away" (see de-) + habere "to have" (see habit (n.)). Restored spelling [was used] after c. 1400. The related term "debtor" was first used in English also in the early 13th century; the terms "dettur, dettour, [came] from Old French detour, from Latin debitor "a debter," from past participle stem of debere;...The -b- was restored in later French, and in English c. 1560-c. 1660." In the King James Bible, various spellings are used; the spellings "detter [are used] three times, debter three times, debtor twice and debtour once."

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