ARREARS

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does arrears mean? 

• ARREARS (noun)
  The noun ARREARS has 2 senses:

1. the state of being behind in payments

2. an unpaid overdue debt

  Familiarity information: ARREARS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ARREARS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being behind in payments

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

an account in arrears

Hypernyms ("arrears" is a kind of...):

financial obligation; indebtedness; liability (an obligation to pay money to another party)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An unpaid overdue debt

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Hypernyms ("arrears" is a kind of...):

debt (money or goods or services owed by one person to another)

 Context examples 

One of them in my room, Charles Gorot, had some arrears of work to make up, so I left him there and went out to dine.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My own work, with its manifold arrears, took me all day to clear off; it was dark when I was able to inquire about my zoöphagous patient.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling snowball.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was only yesterday that we had an infernal Dutchman here howling about some arrears of interest and the deuce knows what. ‘My good fellow,’ said I, ‘as long as the Commons starve me, I have to starve you,’ and so the matter ended.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)