amortize
Americanverb (used with object)
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amortizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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amortized,
past participle, past
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amortizing
present participle
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Finance.
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to liquidate or extinguish (a mortgage, debt, or other obligation), especially by periodic payments to the creditor or to a sinking fund.
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to write off a cost of (an asset) gradually.
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Old English Law. to convey to a corporation or church group; alienate in mortmain.
verb
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finance to liquidate (a debt, mortgage, etc) by instalment payments or by periodic transfers to a sinking fund
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to write off (a wasting asset) by annual transfers to a sinking fund
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property law (formerly) to transfer (lands, etc) in mortmain
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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amortizesimple
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amortizessimple
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have amortizedperfect
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has amortizedperfect
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am amortizingprogressive
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are amortizingprogressive
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is amortizingprogressive
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have been amortizingperfect progressive
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has been amortizingperfect progressive
Past
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amortizedsimple
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had amortizedperfect
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was amortizingprogressive
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were amortizingprogressive
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had been amortizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of amortize
1375–1425; Middle English amortisen < Anglo-French, Old French amortiss-, long stem of amortir literally, to kill, die < Vulgar Latin *a ( d ) mortīre (derivative of Latin mors, stem mort- death, with ad- ad- ); -ize later replacing -is ( s )-, probably by association with Anglo-Latin a ( d ) mortizāre
Explanation
To amortize is to gradually pay off a debt. A bank will help you amortize a loan so that you can make a monthly payment until you've paid back the entire amount. A simple way to understand the verb amortize is "make monthly payments on a debt." More specifically, to amortize is to pay down the total amount of the loan a little bit at a time, rather than only covering fees or interest on top of the loan amount. Someone whose bank amortizes their car loan makes a payment each month, gradually reducing the total amount they owe. Amortize stems from a Vulgar Latin word meaning "extinguish."
Vocabulary lists containing amortize
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They say we need massive amounts of energy, we need huge amounts of data, we need the smartest kids around, and then we need the scale to amortize the massive investment that we are making.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 21, 2026
And Musk’s 2018 pay award was valued at about $56 billion, or $8 billion a year, if investors amortize it over seven years.
From Barron's ● Nov. 7, 2025
We want to move to an all-inclusive pricing, where if hosts have a fixed cost, they can amortize that fixed cost.
From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2023
“Seventy-thousand dollars — you amortize it over 10 to 15 years, whatever the dog’s life is, and it’s not that big of a price tag.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2023
This weakened their balance sheets considerably and the government reneged on its promises to allow them to amortize the goodwill element of the purchase over 40 years.
From Crime and Corruption by Samuel Vaknin
Importantly, an installment loan "amortizes" – that is, part of each payment reduces the amount owed.
From US News ● Jun. 1, 2016
We have a library we can draw on that amortizes the cost that makes it worthwhile.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2015
The effect is similar to how a mortgage amortizes: The portion of each payment that goes toward interest is at its highest the first month and decreases with each payment.
From Salon ● May 13, 2013
Netflix, Warner, and Paramount amortized around $40 billion worth of content in the past 12 months, much of it on flops.
From Barron's ● Feb. 18, 2026
“When amortized across the generations this number becomes vanishingly small,” he wrote.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2025
The sets, props and costumes cost around $1 million to produce, said Landmesser, a “not disproportionately large investment” shared by the Chicago and San Francisco companies and amortized through rentals.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2024
It’s essentially the way hotels price, where any of their fixed costs are amortized across their nightly rate.
From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2023
Large insurance companies or savings and loan associations also issue fifteen to twenty year first mortgages, amortized over the period by monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual payments.
From If You're Going to Live in the Country by Frank Lieberman
If we look at how the weighting of principal and interest within the amortizing loan payments changes over time, we see quite an advantage for the 15-year loan, even after five years.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026
The aim is to reduce monthly payments by amortizing the loan over a longer period.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 11, 2025
"It is concerning. You don’t want a big portfolio of negative amortizing mortgages," Rogers said.
From Reuters ● Nov. 3, 2023
Even with low-interest loans and crop insurance payments, many farmers are turning to amortizing past debt, according to Joe Brannen with the Georgia Bankers Association.
From Fox News ● Feb. 27, 2019
It dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage; it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward; it justified the past while amortizing the future.
From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
