Forms: 6 banckerowt-en, 6–7 banke-, bankrout(e, banquerout, 7 banckroute, bankerupt, -rumpt. [App. f. the sb. (in sense 1); orig. short for ‘to make bankrupt’: the trans. sense is later, and perh. favored by the analogy of disrupt, etc. Not in It. or Fr.]
† 1. To become bankrupt, to fail, to ‘break’; = the early phrase ‘to make bankrupt.’ (Often in the sense of fraudulent failure: see BANKRUPT sb. 1.)
1552. Huloet, Banckerowten, or make banckerowte, or banckrupte.
1570. Levins, Manip., /229. To bankerout, fidem fallere.
1608. Chapman, Byron’s Conspir., Plays, 1873, II. 234. He that winnes Empire with the losse of faith, Out-buies it: and will banck-route.
1689. [see BANKRUPTING vbl. sb.]
2. trans. To make or render (any one) bankrupt; to make insolvent.
1616. Beaum. & Fl., Laws Candy, III. i. He … will be bankrupted so much the sooner.
1650. Weldon, Crt. & Char. Jas. I., 58. If they had already impoverished the Kingdome; by the union, they would bankerupt it.
1865. Times, 31 July, 6/2. As there is some fear of bankrupting the Treasury, the Secretary now pays only one-fourth of the claims against him in cash, the remaining three-fourths being paid in new certificates of indebtedness.
1881. Daily News, 17 Sept., 6/7. A bad season or two inevitably bankrupts the tenant and throws unlet land on the heads of the proprietor.
† 3. To reduce to beggary, beggar, exhaust the resources of. lit. and fig. Obs.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., I. i. 27. Make rich the ribs, but bankerout the wits.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T. (1613), 64. I should bankroute them all in description.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, II. ix. § 44. Seven hundred Queens … were able to bankrupt the Land of Ophir.
a. 1659. Cleveland, On a Fly, 16. In this single Death of thee Th’ hast bankrupt all Antiquity.
c. 1700. Gentl. Instruct. (1732), 480. He is bankrupted of Patience, Money and Grace.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), VII. 258. Art thou sure that the making good of such a vow will not totally bankrupt thee?
