amortization

Etymology

The revised OED takes it as borrowed from Medieval Latin amortizātiō, also admortizātiō, the alienation of property in mortmain, recorded from the 13th century, formed from the past participle of amortizō (the source of amortize) and the Latin suffix -iō.^[2] Barnhart allows either that or a formation from English amortize + -ation,^[3] and Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com give the Medieval Latin source.^[4][5] The verb amortize is amortisen, from Old French amortir (“to deaden, kill, destroy”) through its stem amortiss-,^[6][3][7][8] from Vulgar Latin *admortiō (“to deaden, extinguish”), formed from ad- (“to”) and Latin mors (“death”).^[7][8][9][3] Anglo-Norman had amortir from the 12th century, already with the senses "to alienate in mortmain" and "to extinguish".^[10] The OED compares Middle French amortisacion (1398) and Middle Dutch amortisatie.^[2] The noun is related to mortal and mortgage.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In law, the transfer of property to a church or other corporation in mortmain: 1607, in Thomas Ridley's View of the Civile and Ecclesiastical Law.^[2][11] Barnhart dates the word to 1672,^[3] Etymonline to the 1670s,^[6] Merriam-Webster to 1652^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1665–75.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense followed the verb amortize, which since 1395 had meant to transfer property in mortmain, a transfer that put land beyond sale, as if into a "dead hand";^[2][3] the noun is now historical in this use.^[2] The financial sense, paying off a debt gradually by regular payments, or the money put aside for this, appears in 1810 in the OED,^[2][11] and in 1824 in Etymonline, which notes extinction by a sinking fund.^[6] Hoad dates the debt sense of the verb to the 19th century.^[8] In accounting, from 1877, it also came to mean writing off the cost of an asset gradually, now especially of intangible assets.^[2] Collins also records a technical sense in computing the yield of a bond bought at a premium.^[12]

Timeline

• 1607 – the transfer of property in mortmain (law; now historical).^[2][11]
• 1810 – the gradual paying off of a debt by regular payments; a sum set aside for this.^[2][11]
• 1877 – the gradual writing off of the cost of an asset (accounting).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The paying off of a debt, such as a mortgage, by regular instalments of principal and interest over a period: The loan's amortization ran over twenty years.^[12][4][2]
2. The money set aside or paid for this.^[12][2]
3. (accounting) The gradual writing off of the cost of an asset, especially an intangible one.^[2][4]
4. (law, historical) The transfer of property to a church or other corporation in mortmain.^[2][6]

Related words

• amortize
• mortmain
• mortal
• mortgage

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins