bailout
UK[ˈbeɪlaʊt]US[ˈbeɪlaʊt]
n
an act of giving financial assistance to a failing business or economy to save it from collapse.
n
an emergency rescue from a difficult situation, especially a financial one.
Morpheme Breakdown
bail
out
bail
to secure a release
out
to exit or remove
Etymology
the term 'bailout' is a modern compound formed from the verb phrase 'to bail out'. the verb 'bail', in the sense of removing water from a boat to prevent sinking, was figuratively extended to mean rescuing someone from a crisis. the particle 'out' completes the phrasal verb, emphasizing extraction from a predicament. this nautical metaphor was directly applied to 20th-century economics, where providing financial capital to a distressed entity is conceptualized as rescuing it from 'sinking'. thus, the literal action of bailing water out of a vessel evolved into the abstract concept of a financial rescue package.
Analysis
Structure: bail (to secure a release) + out (to exit or remove)
bail (from old french 'baillier', meaning 'to control, to deliver', of latin origin); out (from old english 'ūt', meaning 'out, away, outside').
Examples
the government orchestrated a massive bailout for the banks during the financial crisis.
the company's risky investments forced it to seek a bailout from its investors.
many taxpayers opposed using public funds for the corporate bailout.