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PlainSpell

installment

UK /ɪnˈstɔːl.mənt/noun

installment is a noun meaning “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…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled I-N-S-T-A-L-L-M-E-N-T and has 3 syllables, and it appears 3.8 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of installment is installments.

What does installment mean?

noun

  1. 1

    USOne 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.

  2. 2

    USAny 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.

  3. 3

    USA part of a published or broadcast serial.

  4. 4

    USThe act of installing; installation.

  5. 5

    USobsoleteThe seat in which one is placed.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce installment?

  • UK /ɪnˈstɔːl.mənt/
  • British /ɪnˈstoːl.mənt/
  • /ɪnˈstɔl.mənt/

Installment has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-installment.wav, EN-AU_ck1_instalment.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of installment

  • installments plural
  • instalment

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is installment?

Installment appears 3.8 times per million words in written English, the 13,321st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Installment in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchau fur et à mesure (finance: portion of debt), épisode, volet (media: part of a serial), installation (act of installing; installation)
GermanRate (finance: portion of debt), Folge (media: part of a serial)
Portugueseparcela, prestação (finance: portion of debt), episódio (media: part of a serial), instalação (act of installing; installation)
Spanishcuota, plazo, instalamento (finance: portion of debt), fascículo (media: part of a serial), instalación, instalamiento (act of installing; installation)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does installment come from?

A 1732 alteration of estallment, from Anglo-Norman estaler (“fix payments”), from Old French estal (“fixed position”), from Old High German stal (“stall", "standing place”) The sense of "part of a whole produced in advance of the rest" is from 1823.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).