Meaning & use
secure debt
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Meanings
nouncountable or uncountablefinancebusiness
Money that someone borrows and promises to repay, with a particular asset pledged as backing if they fail to pay.
Grammar: Countable when talking about individual loans (a secure debt, two secure debts); uncountable when speaking generally (the level of secure debt).
Patterns
- a secure debt of $500,000
- take on secure debt
- repay secure debt
The bank agreed to lend them the money as a secure debt against their warehouse.
Because it was a secure debt, the interest rate was lower than on an unsecured loan.
The company's secure debt is backed by its fleet of delivery vans.
nouncountablefinancebusinesslegal
A debt that a lender can recover by taking and selling a named piece of the borrower's property.
Grammar: Often used in the plural to talk about several such loans held by one borrower: secure debts.
Patterns
- hold secure debts
- convert a debt into a secure debt
- rank ahead of other secure debts
If the borrower defaults, the holder of a secure debt can seize the pledged asset.
In the bankruptcy case, the secure debts were paid before the unsecured ones.
Lenders prefer secure debts because they carry less risk of losing the money.
Word forms
| plural | secure debts |
|---|
Common combinations
- a secure debt against something
- They raised a secure debt against the factory building.
- secure debt financing
- The expansion was funded through secure debt financing rather than new shares.
- hold secure debt
- Several pension funds hold secure debt issued by the airport operator.
- convert something into a secure debt
- The lender converted the overdue loan into a secure debt over the land.
- secure debt obligations
- The firm must meet its secure debt obligations before paying dividends.
Synonyms and how they differ
- secured loan
- The everyday term for the same idea; it is more common in personal finance and sounds more natural when talking about mortgages or car loans.
- mortgage
- A specific kind of secure debt tied to property; use it only when the pledged asset is real estate.
- collateralized debt
- A more technical phrase used in finance writing; it stresses the asset backing rather than the borrower's promise.
Opposites
Word family
- secured adjective
- Describing a loan or debt that has an asset pledged as backing.
- security noun
- The asset pledged to a lender, or the legal right over it.
- secure verb
- To obtain something, especially funding, or to make a loan safe by pledging assets.
- unsecured adjective
- Describing a debt without any asset pledged as backing.
Commonly confused: secure debt or secured debt? secure debt or security?
secure debt vs secured debt
This is the usual and more natural form. 'Secure debt' appears mainly in legal and financial writing; in everyday speech, say 'secured debt' or 'a secured loan.'
secure debt vs security
A security is the asset or right pledged; a secure debt is the loan itself that is backed by that asset.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'secure debt' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Against' introduces the asset pledged as backing, so 'a secure debt against the warehouse' is correct. 'To' and 'of' do not express backing, and 'for' would suggest the loan was intended for the warehouse rather than backed by it.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “secure debt”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.