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

Each partner had to put in $20,000 for the down payment, with Witkoff financing his cut with a loan from his father—a sum that made up half of all his dad’s cash at the time. —Giacomo Tognini, Forbes, 20 Nov. 2024

The federal indictment filed against Wagner noted that funds were used for a $4 million down payment on a second home in Scottsdale, an $8 million personal aircraft, a $4.5 million nightclub development called Swags, and an $8 million real estate property in Missoula, Montana. —Miguel Torres, The Arizona Republic, 13 Nov. 2024

Repeat buyers were able to enter the housing market with much larger down payments (median 23%) than first-time homebuyers (median 9%). —Samantha Delouya, CNN, 4 Nov. 2024

An 18% down payment — the median percentage buyers put down, according to NAR — on a $435,000 home comes to $78,300. —Mike Winters, CNBC, 4 Nov. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1854, in the meaning defined above

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