foreclose

Verb

foreclose (third-person singular simple present forecloses, present participle foreclosing, simple past and past participle foreclosed)

1. (transitive) To repossess a mortgaged property whose owner has failed to make the necessary payments; used with on.
   • They have to move out of their house because the bank foreclosed on their mortgage.
2. (transitive) To cut off (a mortgager) by a judgment of court from the power of redeeming the mortgaged premises.
3. (transitive, originally) To shut up or out; to prevent from doing something.
   • The embargo with Spain foreclosed this trade.1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall, London: […] S[imon] S[tafford] for Iohn Iaggard, […], →OCLC
   • One of the paradoxes of Ostpolitik, as practiced by Brandt and his successors, was that by transferring large sums of hard currency into East Germany and showering the GDR with recognition, attention, and support, West German officials unintentionally foreclosed any chance of internal change...2005, Tony Judt, “The Power of the Powerless”, in Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN

   Synonyms:

   stop, prevent, bar, exclude