rupt-, -rupting, -ruption

An instance of suddenly breaking away or off.

1. Suddenness; unceremonious haste or vehemence; as, abruptness of style or manner.
2. The state of being abrupt or broken; craggedness; ruggedness; steepness.

1. Against dishonesty; especially, against bribery and dishonest gain; incorruptness.
2. Opposing moral perversion, degeneracy, and depravity.
3. Working against the destruction of honesty or opposed to undermining moral integrity.
4. Making efforts to stop the bribery of public officials who are willing to violate their proper responsibilities as office holder.
5. Making efforts to stop decay or progressive putrescence, rottenness, or decay.

A principal highway, especially in France and French-speaking Canada.

1. In law: A debtor that, upon voluntary petition or one invoked by the debtor's creditors, is judged legally insolvent. The debtor's remaining property is then administered for the creditors or is distributed among them.
2. Any insolvent debtor; a person unable to satisfy any just claims made upon him or her.
3. A person who is totally lacking in a specified resource or quality: "He was intellectually bankrupt."
4. Etymologically, from Italian banca rotta, from banca "moneylender's shop"; litterally, "bench" + rotta "broken, defeated, interrupted" from (and remodeled on) Latin rupta, past participle of rumpere "to break".

Being bankrupt or insolvent started long before our modern times

The original meaning in Italian was the ruin or breaking up of a trader's business because of his failure to pay creditors, or the abandonment of business to avoid paying debts. The modification of this sense to mean "an insolvent person" is peculiar to English.

In medieval times, Italian moneylenders used a small bench in the markeplace to conduct their business. The Latin word for such a bench, banca, is in fact the source for the English word bank. These money lenders, the "bankers" of their day, were required to break up their benches if they failed in business.

The term bankrupt appeared in 1543 and was borrowed through Middle French banqueroute, and directly from Italian banca rotta, "bankruptcy" (literally, "bank broken"; rotta from rompere, "to break", from Latin rumpere, "to break"; the modern form -rupt is an alteration of Medieval Latin ruptus, "broken", and as a noun meaning "a bankrupt"), later became the English word bankrupt.

1. The state of having been legally declared bankrupt.
2. Lack of resources; the complete lack of a particular quality, especially good or ethical qualities; moral bankruptcy.

1. To cause to become financially bankrupt.
2. To ruin: "His was an administration that bankrupted its credibility by seeking to manipulate the news."

To ruin utterly in character or quality: was corrupted by limitless power; debased himself by pleading with his captors; a youth debauched by drugs and drink; indulgence that depraves the moral fiber; perverted her talent by putting it to evil purposes; a proof vitiated by a serious omission.

1. Marked by immorality and perversion; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil; such as a corrupt society.
2. Guilty of dishonest practices; such as, bribery; lacking integrity; crooked: "A corrupt judge."
3. Venal; dishonest: "He was a corrupt mayor."
4. Made inferior or containing errors or alterations; such as, a text: "He had a corrupt translation of the book."
5. Tainted; decayed; putrid.
6. Etymology: from Latin corruptus, past participle of corrumpere, "to destroy, to spoil, to bribe"; from com-, "together" + rup-, past participle stem of rumpere, "to break".

1. To destroy or subvert the honesty or integrity of.
2. To ruin morally; to pervert.
3. To taint; to contaminate.
4. To cause to become rotten; to spoil.
5. To change the original form of; for example, a text.
6. In Computer Science: To damage (data) in a file or on a disk.

Someone who corrupts; someone who vitiates or taints; as, a corrupter of morals.

The quality of being corruptible; the possibility or liability of being corrupted; corruptibleness.

1. Capable of being corrupted, or morally vitiated; susceptible of depravation.
2. Capable of being made corrupt; subject to decay.
3. That which may decay and perish; such as, the human body or any other natural creature, plant, fruit, etc.