An arrangement in which a payment not made when due is carried over to the following period. In business, this usually refers to payments to preferred stockholders and bondholders. If these payments are not made in the period in which they are incurred, then they accrue to the preferred stock or bond holder. Before any payments are made to common stockholders, the preferred stockholders and bondholders must be paid.

Use cumulative in a sentence

After four rounds, I checked our cumulative score and realized that it was a lot higher than I thought it would be.


The cumulative effects of two years of terrible drought were far worse than expected, and the people of the town were not prepared for the aftermath


My company faced hard times and had to suspend payments to bondholders, but the company CEO promised that he would make a cumulative payment next quarter to make them whole.


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multirule system tangible equity