If you apply extra payments directly to your loan balance as a principal reduction, your loan can be amortized [ˈæmərˌtaɪz] sooner.

amortize
verb [ˈæmərˌtaɪz]

To amortize something, e.g. mortgage, is to pay for it by making regular payments over a long period of time.

When you amortize a loan, you figuratively “kill it off” by paying it down in installments, an idea reflected in the etymology of amortize. ...ultimately from a Latin word meaning “to kill” that was formed in part from the Latin noun mors, meaning “death”; it is related both to murder and a word naming a kind of loan that is usually amortized: mortgage.

English