debt

ân nghĩa

An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another.

ℹ Khác với 'món nợ' (thường dùng cho tiền bạc), các từ như 'ân nghĩa' hay 'nợ ân tình' dùng để chỉ các nghĩa vụ về mặt cảm xúc hoặc đạo đức.

• Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt / Of this proud king, who studies day and night / To answer all the debt he owes to you / Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
• This long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid.

ơn nghĩa

The state or condition of owing something to another.

ℹ Từ 'ơn nghĩa' dùng để chỉ sự mang ơn về mặt tình cảm hoặc đạo đức, không dùng cho các khoản nợ tiền bạc.

• I am in your debt.
• We owe them a debt of gratitude for taking care of our pets.

khoản nợ, nợ

Money that one person or entity owes or is required to pay to another, generally as a result of a loan or other financial transaction.

⚠ Học sinh thường viết 'một nợ' hoặc 'cái nợ'; đúng phải là 'một khoản nợ'.

ℹ Trong tiếng Việt, 'khoản nợ' thường được dùng khi nói về một số tiền cụ thể cần phải hoàn trả.

• Bolsheviki had repudiated the four-billion-dollar debt which the government of the Tsar had contracted with the bankers.
• Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.