moratorium
Syllables: mo·ra·to·ri·umUK/ˌmɒ.ɹəˈtɔː.ɹɪ.əm//ˌmɔ.ɹəˈtɔ.ɹi.əm/
moratorium noun: an authorization to a debtor, permitting temporary suspension of payments.
Noun
moratorium (plural moratoriums or moratoria)
- An authorization to a debtor, permitting temporary suspension of payments.
- A suspension of an ongoing activity.
- Canada may put a moratorium on cloning for research.
- It so happened that at that time the moratorium on the death penalty caused by the Supreme Court decision in the Furman case was still in effect.1990, Gerhard Falk, Murder, an Analysis of its Forms, Conditions, and Causes, McFarland
- Synonyms:
- hiatus
- A period of delay granted to someone, especially an adolescent or young adult, during which they are not yet required to take on adult obligations or make permanent commitments; an extended phase of identity exploration.
moratorium meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam
moratorium in Tamil
- தள்ளி வைத்தல், இடைநிறுத்துக் காலம், அவகாசம், கடன் தவணையுரிமை
moratorium in Urdu
- قانونی مہلت
moratorium in Telugu
- మొరటోరియం
moratorium in Malayalam
- suspension, embargo, ban
- മോററ്റോറിയം, താൽക്കാലിക നിരോധനം, നീട്ടിക്കൊടുത്ത കാലം, കാലാവധി നീട്ടിക്കൊടുക്കൽ, പ്രവർത്തനം നിർത്തിവയ്ക്കൽ, വിലക്ക്
More languagesFewer languages
- moratorium in Kannada
- ಋಣ ವಿಳಂಬನ, ಕಾನೂನಿನಂತೆ ಆದೇಶಿತ ಸಾಲಾವಧಿ ವಿಸ್ತರಣೆ, ತಡೆಹಿಡಿತ, ತಡೆ
- moratorium in Gujarati
- મોરેટોરિયમ
- moratorium in Arabic
- اِسْتِمْهَال istimhāl
Examples of moratorium in a sentence
- If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.2023 March 22, “Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter”, in Future of Life Institute:
- Proponents of an AI moratorium had argued that a patchwork of state and local AI laws is hindering progress in the AI industry and the ability of U.S. firms to compete with China.2025 July 1, Matt Brown and Matt O'Brien, “Senate strikes AI regulatory ban from GOP bill after uproar from the states”, in AP News:
Synonyms of moratorium
Forms of moratorium
| plural | moratoriums |
|---|---|
| plural | moratoria |
Origin of moratorium
New Latin from Late Latin morātōrium, noun use of the neuter of morātōrius (“moratory, delaying”), from Latin moror (“to delay”), from mora (“delay”), from Proto-Indo-European *mere (“to delay, hinder”). See also moratory.
Words formed from moratorium
Questions about moratorium
- What does moratorium mean?
- Moratorium means an authorization to a debtor, permitting temporary suspension of payments.
- What is moratorium in Tamil?
- Moratorium in Tamil is தள்ளி வைத்தல், இடைநிறுத்துக் காலம், அவகாசம். See Moratorium meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use moratorium in a sentence?
- If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.
- What part of speech is moratorium?
- Moratorium is a noun.
- How do you pronounce moratorium?
- Moratorium is pronounced /ˌmɒ.ɹəˈtɔː.ɹɪ.əm/ (UK).
- What is the plural of moratorium?
- The plural of moratorium is moratoriums.
Words near moratorium in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: moratorium (page history and authors); moratorium (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); moratorium (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); moratorium (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); moratorium (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); moratorium (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); moratorium (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-moratorium.ogg, en-au-moratorium.ogg.
Cite this entry: “moratorium.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/moratorium. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.