Definition to reduce gradually — usually a debt or the cost of an asset
Most home loans are paid over 30 years, but the lender also offers an option to amortize mortgages over 15 years. The payments are lower on the 30-year loan, but less interest is paid on the 15-year loan and if you don't refinance, it's paid off twice as fast.
The loan is amortized over 10 years.
amortized = to reduce gradually — usually a debt or the cost of an asset
It dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage; it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward; it justified the past while amortizing the future.
Tim O'Brien -- The Things They Carried
amortizing = reducing gradually
Although he paid for the computer this year, the IRS requires him to amortize the expense over five years.
We won't get to amortize the hard efforts we've put in so far.
Randy Pausch -- The Last Lecture
I'll admit, my shareholders screamed about amortizing the plants over fifty years.
John Ringo -- Live Free or Die
In conference with the salesman, it was agreed that she would pay three dollars down and three dollars a month until the cost was amortized.
