2448: bankrupt Aug 24, 2021

'Bankrupt' is a compound word, and yet its latter element, '-rupt' holds no meaning. This on its own isn't rare, but it comes from an Italian figure of speech which itself is not a compound. Admittedly, were it a word '-rupt' could be just be thought of as related to 'rupture' and that would stand, coming from the same root ultimately, but the Italian 'banca rotta' (broken bench) figuratively refers to a bank that has gone out of business, that the bench was smashed. The terms 'bank' and 'bench' are related also in English with the common meaning as a place where things are deposited (including sand of a riverbank) and the benches of a bank were not actually smashed, at least not regularly to indicate business failure.