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spend

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spend

  • /spɛnd/ Canada, US, UK
  • /spɪnd/ US, pin pen merger
  • /spend/ Australia, New Zealand

Rhymes with -ɛnd

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ

Proto-Indo-European *-s

Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs

Proto-Italic *eks

Latin ex

Latin ex-

Proto-Indo-European *(s)pend-

Proto-Indo-European *(s)péndeti

Proto-Italic *pendō

Latin pendō

Latin expendōbor.

Proto-West Germanic *spendōn

Old English spendan

Middle English spenden

English spend

From Middle English spenden, from Old English spendan (attested especially in compounds āspendan (“to spend”), forspendan (“to use up, consume”)), from Proto-West Germanic *spendōn (“to spend”), borrowed from Latin expendere (“to weigh out”). Doublet of expend.

Cognate with Old High German spentōn (“to consume, use, spend”) (whence German spenden (“to donate, provide”)), Middle Dutch spenden (“to spend, dedicate”), Old Icelandic spenna (“to spend”).

verb spends · spending · spent

  1. ambitransitive To pay out (money). I've already spent hundreds of dollars buying dog chow.
  2. To bestow; to employ; often with on or upon. I […] am never loath / To spend my judgment.
  3. dated To squander. to spend an estate in gambling
  4. To exhaust, to wear out. The violence of the waves was spent.
  5. To consume, to use up (time). My sister usually spends her free time in nightclubs.
  6. ambitransitive, dated To have an orgasm; to ejaculate sexually. The fish spends his semen on eggs which he finds floating and whose mother he has never seen.
  7. intransitive To waste or wear away; to be consumed. Energy spends in the using of it.
  8. To be diffused; to spread. The vines that they use for wine are so often cut, that their sap spendeth into the grapes.
  9. To break ground; to continue working.

noun spends

  1. countable, uncountable Amount of money spent (during a period); expenditure. I’m sorry, boss, but the advertising spend exceeded the budget again this month.
  2. countable, in plural, uncountable Expenditures; money or pocket money. Total January spends by year
  3. countable, uncountable Discharged semen.
  4. countable, uncountable Vaginal discharge.

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