Free US Law Dictionary

Amortization

Amortization or amortisation is the process of decreasing or accounting for an amount over a period of time. The word comes from Middle English amortisen to kill, alienate in mortmain, from Anglo-French amorteser, alteration of amortir, from Vulgar Latin admortire to kill, from Latin ad- + mort-, mors death. Particular instances of the term include:

• Amortization (business), the allocation of a lump sum amount to different time periods, particularly for loans and other forms of finance, including related interest or other finance charges.
  • Amortization schedule, a table detailing each periodic payment on a loan (typically a mortgage), as generated by an amortization calculator.
  • Negative amortization, an amortization schedule where the loan amount actually increases through not paying the full interest
• Amortized analysis, analyzing the execution cost of algorithms over a sequence of operations.
• Amortization of capital expenditures of certain assets under accounting rules, particularly intangible assets, in a manner analogous to depreciation.
• Amortization (tax law)

Amortization is also used in the context of zoning regulations and describes the time in which a property owner has to relocate when the property's use constitutes a preexisting nonconforming use under zoning regulations.