Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- any of several parts into which a debt or other sum payable is divided for payment at successive fixed times: to pay for furniture in monthly installments.
- a single portion of something furnished or issued by parts at successive times: a magazine serial in six installments.
noun
- the act of installing.
- the fact of being installed; installation.
“act of installing,” 1580s, from install + -ment. Meaning “arrangement of payment by fixed portions at fixed times” is from 1732, alteration of Anglo-French estaler “fix payments,” from Old French estal “fixed position,” from Old High German stal “standing place” (see stall (n.1)). Figurative sense of “part of a whole produced in advance of the rest” is from 1823.