depreciation.

1. A decline in the economic or market value of an asset or currency over time.

2. The allocation of an asset’s depreciable cost over the periods of its expected useful life.

3. Belittling or disparagement of someone’s or something’s worth.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• currency depreciation
• depreciation in value

On the page

Currency depreciation raised the local cost of imported materials.

The asset’s depreciation in value reflected changing demand rather than physical damage alone.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: economic explanation, resource analysis, incentive analysis, comparison. Disciplines: economics, business, social science. Commonness: moderately common.