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down payment

noun

Simple meaning

A partial payment made at the time of buy.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

downpaymuhnt

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈdaʊnˈpeɪmənt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. lawfinance

    A partial payment made at the time of purchase; the balance to be paid later

  2. lawfinance

    A payment representing a fraction of the price of something being purchased, made to secure the right to continue making payments towards that purchase.

  3. by extension

    Any initial commitment signifying an intention to carry out a larger future commitment, even though no legal rights or obligations are secured.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A partial payment made at the time of purchase; the balance to be paid later

Used this way, down payment is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Law/legal
  • Government/politics
  • Academic writing
  • Finance/economics

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.