Deposit

How to spell deposit

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce deposit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does deposit mean?

1. nounA sum of money paid in advance as a first instalment or as security against loss or damage.
2. verbTo place money into a bank account, or to put or lay something down in a particular place.

Deposit in a sentence

• noun

  The landlord returned the full deposit after the inspection.

• verb

  She will deposit her wages into the savings account each Friday.

• noun

  They paid a deposit to reserve the holiday cottage for August.

• verb

  Please deposit the cheque before the branch closes at five.

Where does deposit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin depositum, meaning 'something put down or laid aside for safekeeping', which was formed from the verb deponere. That verb splits neatly into de-, meaning 'down' or 'away', and ponere, meaning 'to place' or 'to put', so the literal idea was to set something down out of the way. English adopted it in the late 1500s, initially in the sense of money or valuables entrusted to another for safekeeping, and the meaning soon stretched to the act of placing money in a bank and to the layers of mineral or sediment that nature lays down. The same ponere root, through its participle positus, also gives us 'position', 'compose', and 'opposite', which is a handy reminder that the middle of deposit is spelled with a single 's' that sounds like a 'z', not the double letters some writers expect.

How the word is built

• de- (down)
• posit (to place, from Latin positus, the past participle of ponere 'to put')