American Dictionary of the English Language

Dictionary Search

Spend


SPEND, verb transitive preterit tense and participle passive spent. [Latin expendo; from the root of Latin pando, pendeo, the primary sense of which is to strain, to open or spread; allied to span, pane, etc.]

1. To lay out; to dispose of; to part with; as, to spend money for clothing. Why do ye spend money for that which is not bread? Isaiah 55:2.

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

3. To consume; to exhaust. The provisions were spent, and the troops were in want.

4. To bestow for any purpose; often with on or upon. It is folly to spend words in debate on trifles.

5. To effuse. [Little Used.]

6. To pass, as time; to suffer to pass away. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Job 13:1.

7. To lay out; to exert or to waste; to wear away; as, to spend one's strength.

8. To exhaust of force; to waste; to wear away; as, a ball had spend its force. The violence of the waves was spent. Heaps of spent arrows fall and strew the ground.

9. To exhaust of strength; to harass; to fatigue. Their bodies spent with long labor and thirst-

SPEND, verb intransitive

1. To make expense; to make disposition of money. He spends like a prudent man.

2. To be lost or wasted; to vanish; to be dissipated. The sound spendeth and is dissipated in the open air.

3. To prove in the use. -Butter spent as if it cam from the richer soil.

4. To be consumed. Candles spend fast in a current of air Our provision spend rapidly.

5. To be employed to any use. The vines they use for wine are so often cut, that their sap spendeth into the grapes. [Unusual.]