Does "ruptcy" have a meaning?


Does "ruptcy" have a meaning? As in bank_ruptcy. I can google translate it to other languages and it makes sense but no online dictionary has it. Feels weird to have an ending for one specific word that in itself would mean nothing?



Answer



Actually, the ending there is -cy, which is seen in such nouns as captaincy, idiocy, accuracy. It's a suffix ultimately derived from Greek, through Latin (etymonline.com), yielding an abstract noun from an adjective or another noun; the abstraction moves from an adjective or noun to the state of being, or the position or classification, described by the adjective or noun (if something is accurate, it possesses accuracy; if someone is an idiot, they display idiocy; if they're a captain, they possess a captaincy).


The other morpheme, or word part, you identify is -rupt, which comes ultimately from the Latin rumpere, "break". You see this in words like erupt.


Thus -ruptcy is not really an ending, but a concatenation of a morpheme and a common ending.


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