I. ˈspend verb
( spent -nt ; spent ; spending ; spends )
Etymology: Middle English spenden, from Old English & Old French; Old English spendan, from Latin expendere to weigh out, expend; Old French despendre, from Latin dispendere to weigh out — more at expend , dispense
transitive verb
1. : to distribute or consume in payment or expenditure : pay out : expend , disburse
spends money freely
spent his inheritance within a few years
2.
a. : to exhaust or wear out by use or activity
the silver agitation had by this time spent its force — Marian Silveus
gradually the hurricane spent itself — Francis Robinson
spent himself in the service of humanity — D.S. & Jessie Jordan
b. : to make use of : employ
prehistorians have spent their learning and ingenuity on reconstructing continental invasions — Jacquetta & Christopher Hawkes
determined to spend these new bullets … more profitably — H.H.Arnold & I.C.Eaker
c. : to consume wastefully : squander
spend your rich opinion for the name of a night-brawler — Shakespeare
d. archaic : destroy
3. : to cause or permit to elapse : use the interval of : pass
have spent the greater part of the last year going up and down the countryside — S.P.B.Mais
spends three hours a day on his studies
spent his life in a quiet village
spend the evening with his friends
4. : to give up : endure the loss of
to royalize his blood, I spent my own — Shakespeare
the ship spent its mast
intransitive verb
1. : to expend money or other possession
spends without any thought for the next day
2. chiefly dialect : to turn out or produce in a specified manner
3. : to become expended
I have no skill to make money spend well — R.W.Emerson
Synonyms:
expend , disburse : spend is the general term indicating a paying out of money or, sometimes, incurring obligations calling for its being paid
spend a hundred dollars for a coat
spending billions on wars
It may apply to using, consuming, or exhausting without tangible or specific return
spend time on the project
spend one's life in government service
expend is often but not always applied to larger sums or more important materials and attributes
more than twenty million dollars has been expended in the construction — American Guide Series: New York City
during the war years we have expended our resources — both human and natural — without stint — H.S.Truman
this eloquence was always expended in expounding the duties of the citizen — H.L.Mencken
disburse is sometimes interchangeable with expend; it indicates a paying out or distributing, often from a public or corporation fund, sometimes by a person or agency other than the one doing the spending or expending
state and federal funds disbursed for roads aggregated $34,514,584 — James Brewster
waiting for the teller to disburse those complex payroll accounts — Christopher Morley
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- spend one's mouth
II. noun
( -s )
: the act or process of spending money — used in the phrase on the spend