down payment

American  

Or down-payment

noun

• down payments
  plural

1. an initial amount paid at the time of purchase, in installment buying, time sales, etc.

2. any initial or partial payment, gift, favor, or recompense, as to reduce one's indebtedness or express one's obligation or gratitude.

   This gift is just a down payment for all the favors I owe you.

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down payment British  

noun

1. the deposit paid on an item purchased on hire-purchase, mortgage, etc

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down payment Cultural  

1. A payment in part made at the time of purchase of a good, with the promise to make full payment later.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• down payments
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of down payment

First recorded in 1925–30

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

down payment

When he graduated, they encouraged him to rent it out and keep the income; when we decided to buy, he sold the apartment and we used the proceeds for our own down payment.

From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2026

We’re among them: When my husband went to grad school, his parents gave him the down payment for a small apartment in Tucson, Arizona.

From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2026

Related: ‘I have no children’: My aunt gave me $50,000 for a down payment.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026

That down payment amount is based on the statewide median $900,000 price tag for a house, according to recent data from the California Assn. of Realtors.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2026

A few months later, we used the advance for my second novel and placed a down payment on a pretty, two-bedroom Victo­rian house in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights.

From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

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Related Words

• deposit

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