An informal written acknowledgment of debt, literally meaning 'I owe you.'
Abbreviation of the phrase 'I owe you,' first recorded in the 17th century. The phonetic spelling became a standard financial term despite its informal origins.
An IOU represents the ultimate minimalism in financial documentation - three letters that create a legal obligation, proving that sometimes the most important contracts are the simplest ones, built on nothing more than a promise spelled out phonetically.
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