dette

Noun

debt (countable and uncountable, plural debts)

1. An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another.
   • Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt / Of this proud king, who studies day and night / To answer all the debt he owes to you / Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.1589, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, act 1, scene 3
2. The state or condition of owing something to another.
   • I am in your debt.
3. Money that one person or entity owes or is required to pay to another, generally as a result of a loan or other financial transaction.
   • Bolsheviki had repudiated the four-billion-dollar debt which the government of the Tsar had contracted with the bankers.1919, Upton Sinclair, chapter 15, in Jimmie Higgins
4. An action at law to recover a certain specified sum of money alleged to be due