Meaning & use
frozen assets
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Meanings
nounplurallegal
Money or property that an authority has legally blocked, so the owner cannot spend, sell or move it.
Grammar: Usually plural: the frozen assets were released.
Patterns
- frozen assets of someone
The court ordered the frozen assets of the company to stay in place.
Banks reported millions in frozen assets after the new sanctions.
He could not pay his lawyer because his assets were frozen.
nounpluralfinance
Investments or possessions that cannot easily be turned into cash when you need it.
Grammar: Used in business to describe illiquid holdings: a lot of money is tied up in frozen assets.
The firm struggled to pay wages because most of its wealth was in frozen assets.
Land and old equipment can become frozen assets in a crisis.
Her savings were mostly frozen assets that took months to sell.
Common combinations
- release frozen assets
- The government agreed to release the frozen assets.
- seize frozen assets
- Officials seized frozen assets.
- billions in frozen assets
- The bank held billions in frozen assets.
- unfreeze frozen assets
- Lawyers tried to unfreeze the frozen assets.
Synonyms and how they differ
- blocked funds
- This focuses on money and is more everyday than frozen assets.
- illiquid assets
- This is the technical term for items that are hard to sell quickly.
- sequestered property
- This is a formal legal phrase for property taken into custody.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: frozen assets or fixed assets?
frozen assets vs fixed assets
Fixed assets are long-term items like buildings, not funds blocked by a court.
Practice
A judge ordered that a suspect's bank accounts be blocked during an investigation. These accounts became ___.
Choose one answer.
Blocked accounts are frozen assets. Liquid assets would be easy to spend, and fixed assets are long-term business items.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “frozen assets”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.