Repayment

How to spell repayment

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce repayment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does repayment mean?

1. nounThe act of paying back money that was borrowed, or an instalment of that money.

Repayment in a sentence

• The first repayment on the mortgage is due at the end of the month.

• Early repayment of the loan saved them a great deal in interest.

Where does repayment come from?

Language of origin: French

The heart of this word is the verb 'pay', which English took from the Old French 'payer', meaning to satisfy or settle. That French verb came in turn from the Latin 'pacare', literally 'to pacify' or 'to appease', built on 'pax', the Latin word for peace. The idea was that handing over what you owed brought peace and quieted a creditor, a sense that softened over the centuries into the plain meaning of giving money for goods or debts. The prefix 're-' carries the Latin notion of 'back' or 'again', so 'repay' is to pay back, and the noun suffix '-ment', also from French and Latin, turns the action into a thing. The whole word assembled itself in English in the late Middle Ages, and its spelling stays simple because each piece (re, pay, ment) is written exactly as you would expect.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• pay (to give money owed)
• -ment (noun of action or result)