national debt

The total financial obligations of a national government.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

national debt

(Economics) the total outstanding borrowings of a nation's central government. Also called (esp US): public debt

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

na′tional debt′

the financial obligations of a national government. Also called public debt.

[1775–85, Amer.]

national debt

A country’s outstanding debt, figured cumulatively over successive governments.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

national debt - the debt of the national government (as distinguished from the debts of individuals and businesses and political subdivisions)

debt - money or goods or services owed by one person to another

Translations

national debt

n → debito pubblico

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

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References in classic literature

Pitt's celebrated sinking-fund scheme for paying off the national debt of Great Britain did, half a century since, and under very much the same influences; and she desired her friend to come at once to the point, as connected with the pocket-handkerchief.

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At the man's were a Member, an Engineer, a Payer-off of the National Debt, a Poem on Shakespeare, a Grievance, and a Public Office, who all seem to be utter strangers to Veneering.

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"Immensely rich, sir; and I could, without missing it, pay the national debt of France."

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There around us lay treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build a fleet of ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly for the faintest chance of escape.

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But as for paying your creditors in full, I might as well hope to pay the National Debt. It is madness, sheer madness, to think of such a thing.

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It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with the composed faces and the regulated actions.

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I have an impression that they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure.

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'Them things as is alvays a-fluctooatin', and gettin' theirselves inwolved somehow or another vith the national debt, and the chequers bill; and all that.'

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national debt, replacing China as the largest foreign creditor country.

Japan replaces China as largest foreign holder of US national debt

The special committee had recently released the full report on the national debt and liabilities for 2018-2020, which is available on the Parliament website.

Debt not a bane, all countries have debt, says Bersatu lawmaker

With Ross Perot's passing, many missed a teaching opportunity by not looking at the federal budget deficit and national debt in 1992 versus 2019.

National debt misery