A year into the financial crisis, the news is grim and there are signs of even worse troubles ahead. The mortgage bust continues and has begun to spread to loans for construction and commercial property, as well as credit cards and auto loans.

There may soon be more bank failures and a spate of corporate bankruptcies. That means that unemployment will almost certainly rise employers have shed nearly half a million jobs this year — and those who keep their jobs will have to cope with fewer hours, measlier raises and evaporating bonuses.

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Subprime was voted the word of the year by the American Dialect Society in recognition of the mortgage scandal and crisis that has for months enveloped housing and real estate around the country. But that umbrella term, describing cheap often suspiciously cheap mortgages, encompasses a whole glossary of often colorful expressions that could be described as sub subprime. They reflect the deceit, cynicism and scandalous exploitation that are taking the homes of many thousands, perhaps millions, of families.

Some other words, words that betoken possible rescue and relief, are also finally entering the vocabulary. Meanwhile, people everywhere a widow in the Bronx who needs money for a new roof or a young couple in San Diego looking for their first home confront an array of bewildering, often deceptive practices described by sub subprime words like the following.

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A federal bankruptcy judge has rejected a settlement involving the Countrywide Financial Corporation, the mortgage lender, saying he was not convinced that it was fair to nearly 300 borrowers who claimed to have been hurt by the company’s abusive practices.

The settlement called for Countrywide, acquired by Bank of America last month, to pay $325,000 to the Chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee in Pittsburgh, Ronda J. Winnecour, to cover costs and settle litigation in 293 separate cases.

In her complaint, Ms. Winnecour said that in dealing with the borrowers, Countrywide had made inaccurate claims, filed unnecessary court papers and demanded improper fees and charges. She also accused it of losing or destroying more than $500,000 in checks paid by homeowners in foreclosure.

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