installment
noun
Simple meaning
A payment of part of a debt.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihnstawlmuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnsˈtɔlmənt
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
bankingfinance
A payment of part of a debt; usually paid at regular intervals
One of a series of parts, whether equal or unequal to the other parts of the series, of a given entity or a given process, which part presents or is presented at a particular scheduled interval.
publishingmedia
A part of a published or broadcast serial.
publishingmedia
A part of a published serial
bankingfinance
Any of a series of portions of a debt or sum of money, which portions may or may not be equal in amount (depending in part on whether the interest rate is fixed or variable), and payment of which takes place at regular intervals toward satisfaction of the total. Payments are generally mensual, quarterly, triannual, biannual, or annual.
The act of installing something (as equipment)
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A payment of part of a debt; usually paid at regular intervals
Used this way, installment is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a financial use: it has a settled meaning in accounting and business, where precision matters more than colour.
- 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
- Finance/economics
- Business/professional
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.
More ways to use installment
- “She paid her first installment on the car loan yesterday.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The act of installing something (as equipment).
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Debt to be paid by installments.
A loan repaid with interest in equal periodic payments.
A system for paying for goods by installments.
The amount of money paid out per unit time.
A system for paying for goods by installments.
A loan repaid with interest in equal periodic payments.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: payment of part of a debt
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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.