down payment

noun

: a part of the full price paid at the time of purchase or delivery with the balance to be paid later

broadly : the first step in a process

Examples of down payment in a Sentence

She made a 10 percent down payment on the car.

We put a down payment on the house.

Recent Examples on the Web

An $50,000 plus down payment seems insurmountable when basic costs dominate their budgets. —Jack Kelly, Forbes, 5 Mar. 2025

Interest rates remain stubbornly high, and the inflationary pressures on other expenses that keep many Americans from being able to save for a down payment are growing, not falling. —Dan Perry, Newsweek, 2 Mar. 2025

Save for a larger down payment With a higher mortgage rate, your monthly payments are larger. —Kelsey Neubauer, CNBC, 28 Feb. 2025

Colony Ridge, less than an hour's drive from Texas’ biggest city, Houston, is a housing development that advertises in Spanish for quality land for low down payments. —Greg Wehner, Fox News, 27 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1854, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for down payment

• copayment
• embayment
• nonpayment
• prepayment
• repayment
• claimant
• overpayment
• underpayment

Kids Definition

down payment

noun

: a part of the full price paid at the time of purchase or delivery with the remainder to be paid later