- bankrupt
- 1530s, from It. banca rotta, lit. "a broken bench," from banca "moneylender's shop," lit. "bench" (see bank (1)) + rotta "broken, defeated, interrupted" from (and remodeled on) L. rupta, fem. pp. of rumpere "to break" (see rupture). "[S]o called from the habit of breaking the bench of bankrupts" [Klein]. The verb is first recorded 1550s.