Other forms: installments
An installment is one of the regular part-payments that add up to the full price. Pay by installments, the first installment, monthly installments.
British writing spells it instalment with one l. Buying on installments almost always costs more than paying at once, because the interest is buried in the schedule, and the advertised monthly figure is designed to be compared with nothing.
1nouninstallmentOne of the regular part-payments that add up to the full price.
“We're paying for the new sofa in monthly installments over a year.”
installment is a payment.
Also accepted in games: instalment
An alteration of an older estallment, from Old French estal, a fixed position, from a Germanic word for a stall.
Old High German
stal — stall", "standing place
Old French
estal — fixed position
Anglo-Norman
estaler — fix payments
English, today
installment
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA