Accelerated depreciation definition including break down of areas in the definition. Analyzing the definition of key term often provides more insight about concepts. Accelerated depreciation can be defined as: Method that produces larger depreciation charges in the early years of an asset’s life and smaller charges in its later years. Depreciation is the expense related to the allocation of the cost of fixed assets over the useful life. The first method of depreciation to think about is a straight line depreciation method because all other deprecation methods can, and usually are, compared to a straight line deprecation method. A straight line deprecation method allocates the cost of an asset evenly over the useful life. In contrast to a straight line depreciation method an accelerated depreciation method will have more depreciation allocated to early years and less to later years, the end result of both depreciation method being the same, both depreciation methods ending at the same point at the end of the useful life, but there is a different a difference in timing between the two deprecation methods. The most common accelerated method is a declining balance deprecation method, double declining deprecation method being the most common of these.