Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The condition of being insolvent.
- n. An instance of being insolvent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The condition of being insolvent; want of means or of sufficiency for the discharge of all debts or obligations; bankruptcy; failure of resources: as, the insolvency of a person or of an estate. When used of traders or merchants, and in bankrupt and insolvent laws generally, insolvency signifies the inability of a person to pay his debts as they become due in the ordinary course of business. But the mere fact that a debtor having ample assets is unable in an emergency to pay every existing obligation as it becomes due, is not regarded as insolvency if he is able to avoid making any actual default by obtaining further credit, or if the exigency is a general panic suspending all business, and his suspension of payment is temporary and terminates with the restoration of a reasonable degree of general confidence.
- n. A proceeding for the application of all the assets to the payment of debts by judicial authority: as, a petition in insolvency.
Wiktionary
- n. The condition of being insolvent; the state or condition of a person who is insolvent; the condition of one who is unable to pay his debts as they fall due, or in the usual course of trade and business; as, a merchant's insolvency.
- n. Insufficiency to discharge all debts of the owner; as, the insolvency of an estate.
- n. The condition of having more debts than assets.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The condition of being insolvent; the state or condition of a person who is insolvent; the condition of one who is unable to pay his debts as they fall due, or in the usual course of trade and business.
- n. Insufficiency to discharge all debts of the owner.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the lack of financial resources
Etymologies
- insolvent + -cy (Wiktionary)
Examples
“With some amendments, the decree retrospectively applied DIFC insolvency legislation to the affairs of Dubai World, giving the tribunal jurisdiction to supervise the restructuring and any insolvency.”
“In the classic bank run, the information gap becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of insolvency; in other cases, insolvency is discovered, not made, as information becomes available and indicates that the institution is genuinely not solvent.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » More Musing on Liquidity and Solvency Distinctions in Sovereign Debt Crises
“But in either case, insolvency is a condition of an institution, such as a bank or financial institution, discovered or made in the present.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » More Musing on Liquidity and Solvency Distinctions in Sovereign Debt Crises
“Considering the unfunded entitlements coming due in decades ahead, and considering the ownership of the Federal debt by foreign interests, governments and others, it seems to me that US insolvency is a very real possibility, unless of course we cut out huge chunks of the government and pay only the entitlements and the interest on our debt.”
“There are no easy answers here, but the guiding principle left by the Founders that bankruptcy be used to quickly and finally resolve insolvency is instructive.”
Matthew Yglesias » Obama Comes Out Swinging in Weekly Address
“The evidence that the pitchers of woe about pending national insolvency are actually more worried about entitlements than insolvency is pretty clear to me: While entitlements are totally driving the long-term fiscal crisis, they have not a word of criticism for entitlements.”
Grading the President in Macro, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Having worked on fiscal reform in several countries (including my home country, Argentina), I think that Shaviro's view on a march to government insolvency is wrong.”
From Musgrave to Shaviro, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Our march toward government insolvency is a complex historical event with multiple causes.”
From Musgrave to Shaviro, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“A plan that assumes insolvency is making the same mistake as a plan that assumes banks are illiquid.”
“The only way the insurer can guarantee a lifetime income without the risk of insolvency is by investing the premiums in ultra-safe instruments with a tiny rate of return and offering only a very small annual payment.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘insolvency’.
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jmjarmstrong's list
Words that I used to know.
geloscopy, hunker, willy nilly, harum scarum, whacko, meh, nork, misunderestimate, atrabiliousness, luftmensch, auxanometer, hyperhedonia and 1948 more...
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me + student loans =
You know that feeling when you open your wallet and all you can find inside are ATM receipts?
When being a squatter is the least of your worries and that thing called dignity is shove...destitution, beggary, impecuniosity, indigence, mendicancy, poor, impoverishment, pauperism, pennilessness, penuriousness, penury, poverty and 168 more...
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♥
These words I LIKE.
laconic, blackrom, yandere, sundry, equivocal, tetracycline, raze, scapegoat, impala, perspicacity, quandary, viscous and 34 more...
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The House of Mirth
fastidious, contrive, portmanteux, precipitate, odious, mirth, elucidate, predominant, languor, throng, eminence, verdure and 40 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for insolvency.

jmjarmstrong JM has just heard that the local marine glue manufacturer’s plans have come unstuck and it seems likely to end in insolvency. Jun 15, 2011