IOU
- noun
- /ˌaɪ.oʊˈjuː/
- The contractor provided an IOU stating he owed me for the repairs we had agreed upon.
- sign an IOU
- write an IOU
- give them an IOU
People don't realise that a pound note is an IOU.
- People don't realise that a pound note is an IOU.
- Now, they say it's intergovernmental debt, but that's like me writing an IOU to me.
- But if they realize that inflation is running out of control, bonds are just IOU dollars.
- In China, developers often force their suppliers to accept commercial paper, a form of IOU, instead of cash payments.
- They could essentially give back their entire IOU and boom they would literally pay for a city with Bitcoin.
- What is that problem that you, you have an IOU and the IOU says you're going to get a certain number of dollars, let's say, or yen or euros.
- It's it's really you have an IOU to take delivery exactly, exactly there.
Examples
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An IOU?
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In China, developers often force their suppliers to accept commercial paper, a form of IOU, instead of cash payments.
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-An IOU is in order.
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An IOU for $300.
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I'll take your IOU.
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When Molly unwrapped the toy, she looked at it and smiled, handing the handwritten IOU to Mom.
Fiction book (1996) -
An IOU.
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He gave me an IOU for the $50 he borrowed last week.
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After the poker game, I received an IOU from my friend promising to pay me back.
Synonyms
A document or digital record, like a bond, that shows someone owes money and when they must pay it back
A written paper that shows a person owes money and promises to pay it back
Antonyms
How Secure
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
IOU = I + owe + you (semi-transparent) = I + O + U
The term is an initialism of the phrase 'I owe you' and a learner who recognises the letters as standing for these words can directly derive the meaning (a written acknowledgement of debt). [Postprocessing: changed transparency from 'transparent' to 'semi-transparent' for abbreviation]
Etymology
IOU comes from the three letters I O U, which stand for the phrase 'I owe you'. So an IOU is a short written promise that you will pay someone back.