Amortize

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /əˈmɔːtɪz/

Alternative forms

• amortise

Origin

From (the stem of) Middle French amortir ("to bring to death"), probably from Late Latin *admortīre, from Latin ad + mortem.

Full definition of amortize

Verb

1. (transitive) To alienate (property) in mortmain.
2. (transitive) To wipe out (a debt, liability etc.) gradually or in installments.
• 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 318:extraordinary borrowing had been so extensive, Joly de Fleury reckoned, that even if it were amortized over the following decade, the state would still be running an annual deficit of over 50 million livres.
3. (transitive, computer science) To even out the costs of running an algorithm over many iterations, so that high-cost iterations are much less frequent than low-cost iterations, which lowers the average running time per iteration.

Antonyms

• accrue to increase over time, rather than decrease

Anagrams

• atomizer