Spend Meaning
/spɛnd/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo pay out (money).
verbTo bestow; to employ; often with on or upon.
Sentence Examples
I don't want to spend the rest of my life regretting it.
When I was a child, I would spend hours reading alone in my room.
We should spend the money on something that will benefit everyone.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She wants to ____ all her hard-earned money on a new car.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
They decided to ____ their summer vacation at a quiet cottage by the beautiful lake.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result."
— 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
"I […] am never loath / To spend my judgment."
— [1633], George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, […], →OCLC:
"their bodies spent with long labour and thirst"
— 1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC:
"During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant[…]"
— 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She wants to ____ all her hard-earned money on a new car.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
They decided to ____ their summer vacation at a quiet cottage by the beautiful lake.