Down payment or downpayment?
down payment is a noun meaning “A payment representing a fraction of the price of something being purchased…”; downpayment is a noun meaning “Alternative form of down payment”. down payment is written as two words and downpayment as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between down payment and downpayment?
| down payment | downpayment | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | A payment representing a fraction of the price of something being purchased, made to secure the right to continue making payments towards that purchase Any initial commitment signifying an intention to carry out a larger future commitment, even though no legal rights or obligations are secured | Alternative form of down payment |
| Example | Her parents considered her school tuition a down payment on her future | none recorded |
| Forms | none | downpayments |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 5 million words |
Sources: down payment and downpayment in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of down payment and downpayment
down payment
- 1
A payment representing a fraction of the price of something being purchased, made to secure the right to continue making payments towards that purchase
- 2
Any initial commitment signifying an intention to carry out a larger future commitment, even though no legal rights or obligations are secured
Her parents considered her school tuition a down payment on her future
downpayment
- 1
Alternative form of down payment
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, down payment or downpayment?
down payment is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; downpayment about once in every 5 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search down payment vs downpayment?
“down payment vs downpayment” is searched about 20 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“downpayment vs down payment”, “down payment or downpayment”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.