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Here are some excerpts taken from the 1999 version of the Canadian Securities Course textbook, Chapter 5: Investment Products: Fixed Income Securities.

Overview:
Traditionally considered buy-and-hold investments, where interest is collected and reinvested until maturity, bonds have now become quite sophisticated in price action, features and trading strategies thanks to recent interest rate volatility, inflation and growth in market size.

Terminology: Fixed income security
A regular fixed income security is one where the income stream is known, as is the maturity date and value; if it is purchased and held to maturity the rate of return is fairly certain. There are variations. Traditionally, a fixed income security was a bond which was purchased at face value and held to be repaid at face value at maturity, with interim interest payments being made on that face value. Today, fixed income securities comprise those bonds as well as a host of variations, where the security may be purchased at some amount other than face value, may be sold prior to maturity, and interest may not be paid at all. Thus fixed income securities now encompass many types of securities including bonds, debentures, money market instruments, mortgages, swaps and even preferred shares. Essentially, where a lump sum is invested, and either a regular series of cash flows is paid on that lump sum, or a regular series of cash flows is expected and accrued, that investment is a fixed income security.

A bond is secured by physical assets in a trust deed written into the bond contract. If the bond goes into default, the trust deed provisions allow certain specified physical assets to be seized by the bondholders and sold to recover their investment. As will be seen, these physical assets could be a building, a railway car, or something more exotic. By contrast, a debenture may be secured by various protective provisions, by a general claim on residual assets and by the issuer's credit rating, but usually not by any specific physical asset which can be seized and sold in the event of default on the issue. In this chapter, we will follow the industry practice of referring to both types as bonds, except in specific situations where the difference is important. For example, government bonds are never secured by physical assets, and so technically are really debentures, but in practice they are always referred to as bonds.