Meanings
nounbad debt (countable and uncountable, plural bad debts)
plural bad debts
- countableuncountableaccountingA debt which cannot be recovered from the debtor, either because the debtor lacks the money to pay or because the debtor cannot be found and/or forced to pay.
The firm’s researchers also went through the public accounts of nearly all the major financial institutions in the world and constructed estimates of how much money they stood to lose from bad debts.
2011 July 18, John Cassidy, “Mastering the Machine”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN
Translations
Chinese Mandarin 壞賬 /坏账, 呆賬 /呆账
- 壞賬 /坏账 (huàizhàng)unrecoverable debt
- 呆賬 /呆账 (dāizhàng)unrecoverable debt
Finnish luottotappio
- luottotappiounrecoverable debt
French créance douteuse, créance irrécouvrable
- créance douteuseunrecoverable debt
- créance irrécouvrableunrecoverable debt
German Forderungsausfall
- Forderungsausfallunrecoverable debt
Indonesian utang buruk
- utang burukunrecoverable debt
Malay hutang lapuk
- hutang lapukunrecoverable debt
Polish nieściągalne należności, nieściągalne wierzytelności
- nieściągalne należnościunrecoverable debt
- nieściągalne wierzytelnościunrecoverable debt
Thai หนี้สูญ
- หนี้สูญunrecoverable debt
Vietnamese nợ xấu
- nợ xấuunrecoverable debt
Cite this entry
APA
bad debt. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bad%20debt
MLA
“bad debt.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bad%20debt. Accessed November 4, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bad debt,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bad%20debt.
Source: bad debt on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.