From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcollateralcol‧lat‧e‧ral1 /kəˈlætərəl/ noun [uncountable] BFLproperty or other goods that you promise to give someone if you cannot pay back the money they lend you SYN security We put up our home as collateral in order to raise the money to invest in the scheme. —collateralize American English verb [transitive]
Examples from the Corpus
collateral• The government could then instruct all banks not to push companies into default and not to dispose of any collateral.• They have also found it hard to use their buildings as collateral for loans.• The firm pledges its inventory as collateral for a short-term loan, but the lender has no physical control over the inventory.• If unsecured, no specific assets are pledged as collateral for the loan.• There were 150 tonnes in Western banks as loan collateral.• The seven companies expect to lose nearly half the money they lent after selling collateral held on the nonperforming debt.put up ... as collateral• Small businesses are risky because the property they can put up as collateral generally devalue quickly.collateralcollateral2 adjective [only before noun] 1 → collateral damage2 CONNECTED WITHrelating to something or happening as a result of it, but not as important There may be collateral benefits to the scheme.3 SSFcollateral relatives are members of your family who are not closely related to youExamples from the Corpus
collateral• There may also be collateral benefits.• Our helplessness, outrage and fear were not collateral damage.• This may relate to collateral development and/or remodelling of the lesion during the period following thrombolysis.• The ban on increased imports has the collateral effect of forcing up prices.• He also purported to apply the conventional collateral fact doctrine but reached a different conclusion from that of his brethren.• Thus far, Gould has provided a restatement of the collateral or preliminary fact doctrine.• Provided that the court felt that the issue was collateral, then intervention was justified.From Longman Business Dictionarycollateralcol‧lat‧e‧ral /kəˈlætərəl/ noun [uncountable] FINANCE assets promised by a borrower to a lender if the borrower cannot repay a loanSYNSECURITYThe firm went bankrupt, and because he had used his two homes as collateral when he borrowed money for the company, he lost almost everything he owned.Origin collateral2 (1300-1400) Medieval Latin collateralis, from Latin com- ( → COM-) + lateralis ( → LATERAL) 