A payment plan where a store holds an item while the customer pays for it in installments, releasing the item once fully paid.
American English compound of 'lay' (to place or set aside) and 'away' (at a distance). It emerged as a retail practice during the Great Depression when customers couldn't pay upfront.
Layaway perfectly captures Depression-era ingenuity—it let poor families own nice things eventually without credit cards (which barely existed), and it's experiencing a comeback because some people still prefer paying cash gradually over digital debt.
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