debt
1
8.1
- noun
- /dɛt/
- Jargon
- Addressing legacy systems often involves paying off accumulated debt from previous design decisions.
- acknowledges a debt
- sleep debt
- intellectual debt
Examples
-
The team realized that their initial shortcuts created technical debt that hindered future progress.
-
He has created much soul debt for himself.
-
At last we can start getting out of debt and concentrating on the future.
Fiction book (1997) -
Considering this mutual debt, developing countries joining a global climate treaty should get their debt canceled.
Academic text (2011) -
In fact, the similarities were substantive, for Wilson, too, owed a debt to pragmatism.
Academic text (2013) -
Acknowledging his intellectual debt and gratitude to Ibrahim and Janet, he dedicated the book to them.
Academic text (2004) -
Dangarembga, like Fanon, studied medicine and psychology; she acknowledges a debt to him in Nervous Conditions.
Academic text (2008) -
Many artists openly acknowledge their debt to others and their practices of imitation, copying, and artistic appropriation.
Academic text (2013) -
In software development, ignoring best practices can lead to significant debt that must be addressed later.
Idioms
Compounds
- Specialized
2
6.1
A document or digital record, like a bond, that shows someone owes money and when they must pay it back
- Specialized
1
5.7
A short time after hard exercise when the body lacks oxygen and breathing becomes heavy to recover
- Australian
Public controversy in Australia about a computer system that wrongly said people owed welfare money
Surface Forms
Etymology
Technical debt uses the idea of debt as a simple picture: like money debt, taking quick fixes now is like 'borrowing' time and creates work you later 'owe' to make things right. So technical debt means the extra future work and cost that comes from earlier shortcuts.