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Opinion of the Court
eration of a motor vehicle if such operation was unlawful because the debtor was intoxicated," § 523(a)(9). None of these use "debt for" in the restitutionary sense of "liability on a claim to obtain"; it makes little sense to speak of "liability on a claim to obtain willful and malicious injury" or "liability on a claim to obtain fraud or defalcation." Instead, "debt for" is used throughout to mean "debt as a result of," "debt with respect to," "debt by reason of," and the like, see American Heritage Dictionary 709 (3d ed. 1992); Black's Law Dictionary 644 (6th ed. 1990), connoting broadly any liability arising from the specified object, see Davenport, supra, at 563 (characterizing § 523(a)(7), which excepts from discharge certain debts "for a fine, penalty, or forfeiture" as encompassing "debts arising from a 'fine, penalty, or forfeiture' ").
Because each use of "debt for" in § 523(a) serves the identical function of introducing a category of nondischargeable debt, the presumption that equivalent words have equivalent meaning when repeated in the same statute, e. g., Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U. S. 135, 143 (1994), has particular resonance here. And contrary to petitioner's submission, it is of no moment that "debt for" in § 523(a)(2)(A) has as its immediate object a commodity (money, property, etc.), but in some of the other exceptions has as its immediate object a description of misconduct, e. g., § 523(a)(4) ("debt for fraud or defalcation [by a] fiduciary"). Section 523(a)(2)(A) also describes misconduct ("false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud"), even if it first specifies the result of that conduct (money, property, etc., obtained). The exception in § 523(a)(9) is framed in the same way, initially specifying an outcome as the immediate object of "debt for" ("death or personal injury"), and subsequently describing the misconduct giving rise to that outcome ("operation of a motor vehicle [while] intoxicated"). It is clear that "debt for" in that provision means "debt arising from" or "debt on account of," and it follows that "debt for" has the same meaning in § 523(a)(2)(A). When construed in the context of the statute
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