Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To use up or put out; expend: spent an hour exercising.
- v. To pay out (money).
- v. To wear out; exhaust: The storm finally spent itself.
- v. To pass (time) in a specified manner or place: spent their vacation in Paris.
- v. To throw away; squander: spent all their resources on futile projects.
- v. To give up (one's time or efforts, for example) to a cause; sacrifice.
- v. To pay out or expend money.
- v. To be exhausted or consumed.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To pay or give out for the satisfaction of need, or the gratification of desire; part with for some use or purpose; expend; lay out: used of money, or anything of exchangeable value.
- To impart; confer; bestow for any reason; dispense.
- To consume; use up; make away with; dispose of in using.
- To pass; employ; while away: used of time, or of matters implying time.
- To waste or wear out by use or action; incur the loss of. See phrase to spend a mast, below.
- To exhaust of means, force, strength, contents, or the like; impoverish; enfeeble; only in the passive. See spent.
- To cause the expenditure of; cost.
- To pay or layout; make expenditure of money, means, strength, or anything of value.
- To be lost or wasted; be dissipated or consumed; go to waste: as, the candles spend fast.
- Specifically, to emit semen, milt, or spawn. See spent, 2.
- To span; grasp with the hand or fingers.
Wiktionary
- v. to pay out (money)
- v. to exhaust, to wear out
- v. to consume, to use up (time)
- v. dated, intransitive to have an orgasm; to ejaculate sexually
- n. Amount spent (during a period), expenditure
- n. pluralized expenditures; money or pocket money.
- n. Discharged semen
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To weigh or lay out; to dispose of; to part with.
- v. To bestow; to employ; -- often with
on orupon . - v. To consume; to waste; to squander; to exhaust.
- v. To pass, as time; to suffer to pass away.
- v. To exhaust of force or strength; to waste; to wear away.
- v. To expend money or any other possession; to consume, use, waste, or part with, anything.
- v. To waste or wear away; to be consumed; to lose force or strength; to vanish.
- v. To be diffused; to spread.
- v. (Mining) To break ground; to continue working.
WordNet 3.0
- v. pay out
- v. spend completely
- v. pass time in a specific way
Etymologies
- From Middle English spenden, from Old English *spendan (attested in compounds āspendan ("to spend"), forspendan ("to use up, consume")), from Proto-Germanic *spendanan, *spendōnan (“to spend”), borrowed from Latin expendere ("to weigh out"). 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"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English spenden, partly from Old English -spendan (from Latin expendēre, to expend; see expend) and partly from Old French despendre, to weigh out; see dispense. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Don't make too big a fool of yourself, nor marry your tango teacher, but spend my million, Drusilla, _spend it_ -- and may God rest your soul!”
“But we are to have the railroad to Mt. Jackson by Christmas, perhaps sooner; and then, if we can raise the wind, we can spend a portion of the winter in the city, and I hope you will find time to come up and _spend the day_ with me, as we will be near neighbors.”
Behind the Scenes or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House
“In polls that employ the term "spend" or "spending" in describing the additional stimulus, its support drops to an average of 44 percent, with 50 percent saying that deficit reduction is the higher priority:”
“I don't really like the term spend back because it sounds like there is some kind of price competition to buy the consumers 'willingness to use our products.”
“Until very recently, it seems most conservatives understood that to spend is to tax.”
“Salesmen and even bankers preached the doctrine that to spend is to enlarge the activity of business.”
“When you think about the expression spend your life, you’ll come to a sobering realization: Your life is something that you actually do spend every day, just as surely as if you were pulling out your wallet and peeling off hours like dollar bills as payment for each day’s experiences and memories.”
“A. -- Yes, it's awfully funny and nice, makes our cunts what they call spend with pleasure.”
The Power of Mesmerism A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies
“I've been debt free for years (no mortgage either), so our household spend is only $2K per month or so assuming we don't change any spending habits or cancel any planned travels.”
“The only "cash" that goes to people that would actually spend is tax rebates, and we (and our groins) know how effective they are.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spend’.
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bootload's Words
grouse, beaut, ripper, gassit, hack, hacking, twit, spon, goon, rosella, magpie, galah and 184 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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Poetrie: Beginner's Lessons
by Malcolm Alexander
If you wish to be wealthy, duck beneath
the topcoat of a well-dressed river
until you come up with a mossy boot
filled with shiners. Spend them w...easy, laugh out loud, bend it, poem, meteor, lacewing, beware, listen, aria, orchid, voicebox, trace and 45 more...
Tweets
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