down payment
"down-payment" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“down payment” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A payment representing a fraction of the price of something being purchased, made to secure the right to continue making payments towards that purchase.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | down payment |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “down payment” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
down payment is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
down payment has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is down payment, spelled D-O-W-N- -P-A-Y-M-E-N-T.
Definition
- 1A payment representing a fraction of the price of something being purchased, made to secure the right to continue making payments towards that purchase.
- 2Any initial commitment signifying an intention to carry out a larger future commitment, even though no legal rights or obligations are secured.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “down payment”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-O-W-N- -P-A-Y-M-E-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.