SPEND • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Spend

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/spɛnd/ Listen

verb

Spend v. t. (past & past part. spent; pres. part. spending)

1.

To weigh or lay out; to dispose of; to part with; as, to spend money for clothing. "Spend thou that in the town." "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?"

2.

To bestow; to employ; often with on or upon. "I... am never loath To spend my judgment."

3.

To consume; to waste; to squander; to exhaust; as, to spend an estate in gaming or other vices.

4.

To pass, as time; to suffer to pass away; as, to spend a day idly; to spend winter abroad. "We spend our years as a tale that is told."

5.

To exhaust of force or strength; to waste; to wear away; as, the violence of the waves was spent. "Their bodies spent with long labor and thirst."

Spend v. i. (past & past part. spent; pres. part. spending)

1.

To expend money or any other possession; to consume, use, waste, or part with, anything; as, he who gets easily spends freely. "He spends as a person who knows that he must come to a reckoning."

2.

To waste or wear away; to be consumed; to lose force or strength; to vanish; as, energy spends in the using of it. "The sound spendeth and is dissipated in the open air."

3.

To be diffused; to spread. "The vines that they use for wine are so often cut, that their sap spendeth into the grapes."

4.

(Mining) To break ground; to continue working.

See images of 'Spend'

Etymology of 'Spend'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Spend" Quotes from Famous Books

... without touching land or paying a duty. A similar promise was exacted of the owners of the other tea-ships whose arrival was daily expected. In this way "it was thought the matter would have ended." "I should be willing to spend my fortune and life itself in so good a cause," said Hancock, and this sentiment was general; they all voted "to carry their resolutions into effect at the risk of their lives ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... it above all—it was in that library that the Governor of New York, coming down from Albany one evening to dine and spend the night, had turned to his host, and said, banging his clenched fist on the table and gnashing his eye-glasses: "Hang the professional politician! You're the kind of man the country wants, Archer. If the stable's ever to be cleaned out, ...

— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... to thirty men. They aren't coming back, Mr. O'Mara; on the contrary, they continue to dribble away, a few every day. And though they appear to do nothing but talk their time away in the saloons in the lower end of the town, they seem to have just as much money to spend, as they did when they were getting their time checks ...

— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... fine recovery. Just now he was at the last gasp for a breath, or so you would have said to look at him. But not so; his exertions were really his stimulant. Presently he would eat and drink consumedly, drench himself with snuff, and then spend half the night with his books, preparing for to-morrow's lecture. Of this sort was Dr. Porfirio Lanfranchi, who had more authority over the wild students of Padua than the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor ...

— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... needles" aroused her effectually, and she recollected that she had walked out to Culver Point and established herself in one of the numerous little bays that fringed the foot of the great red cliff, intending to spend a pleasant afternoon in company with a new novel. And then the Dustman (idling about until his duties proper should commence in the evening) had come by and touched her eyelids and ...

— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

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