Picture the point where the money simply runs out: the bills come in, you turn out every pocket, and there is nothing left to pay them with. Not short this month, not waiting for the salary — empty, with debts still standing. The English word puts a broken piece of furniture inside that picture (bank + rupt, 'the bench broken'), which is why it always sounds final rather than temporary: the thing you did business on has come apart. Once you have that picture, the other uses follow easily. The state can be given to a person, a company or a country, someone can push another party into it, and the same emptiness can be said of qualities instead of money.
From the word’s history
The adjective enters English in the 1560s from Italian 'banca rotta', literally 'a broken bench': 'banca' is the moneylender's bench or shop, and 'rotta' is Latin 'rupta', the feminine past participle of 'rumpere' = 'to break' (the same root as rupture and interrupt). It points, at least as a figure of speech, to an old custom of breaking the bench of a trader who could no longer pay. The noun ('insolvent person') is recorded from the 1530s and the verb ('make insolvent') from the 1550s. The non-money sense, 'lacking some essential quality', is already there by the 1580s.
這個形容詞在 1560 年代從義大利文 banca rotta 進入英文，字面就是「斷掉的檯子」：banca 指錢莊、放款人擺的那張長檯，rotta 來自拉丁文 rupta，是 rumpere「打破」的過去分詞（rupture 破裂、interrupt 打斷都是同一個根）。它指向的是一個舊說法——付不出錢的商人，檯子會被打斷。名詞「破產者」1530 年代就有紀錄，動詞「使破產」則在 1550 年代。至於跟錢無關的那個意思「徹底缺了某種好東西」，1580 年代也已經在用了。知道 bank＋rupt 這個組合，就比較好記住這個字為什麼帶著「散掉、回不去」的味道，而不只是「沒錢」。
Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), entry 'bankrupt'
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
bankruptadj/ˈbæŋk.ɹəpt/
- 1
businessfinanceIn a condition of bankruptcy; unable to pay outstanding debts or meet financial obligations; specifically, having been legally declared insolvent.
- a bankrupt merchant
- "How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked. "Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly."
- 2
Destitute of, or wholly lacking a good quality, value, etc. one should possess or once possessed.
- a morally bankrupt politician
- a creatively bankrupt endeavor
bankruptverb/ˈbæŋk.ɹəpt/
- 1
To force into bankruptcy.
- The cost of the Mendip line had, however, bankrupted the S.D.R. [Somerset & Dorset Railway], and it was leased to the two larger companies for 999 years in 1875, and named the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway.
- 2
card-gamesgamesto get placed last in Tycoon with the bankruptcy rule
bankruptnoun/ˈbæŋk.ɹəpt/
- 1
One who becomes unable to pay his or her debts; an insolvent person; a bankruptee.
- 2
obsoletelawA trader who secretes himself, or does certain other acts tending to defraud his creditors.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。