spend Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb pass time in a specific way
    pass.
    • how are you spending your summer vacation?
  2. verb pay out
    expend; drop.
    • spend money
  3. verb spend completely
    • I spend my pocket money in two days

WordNet


Spend transitive verb
Etymology
AS. spendan (in comp.), fr. L. expendere or dispendere to weigh out, to expend, dispense. See Pendant, and cf. Dispend, Expend, Spence, Spencer.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Spent ; present participle & verbal noun Spending
Definitions
  1. To weigh or lay out; to dispose of; to part with; as, to spend money for clothing.
    Spend thou that in the town. Shak.
    Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? Isa. lv. 2.
  2. To bestow; to employ; -- often with on or upon.
    I . . . am never loath To spend my judgment. Herbert.
  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. Ps. xc. 9.
  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. Knolles.
Spend intransitive verb
Definitions
  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. South.
  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. Bacon.
  3. To be diffused; to spread.
    The vines that they use for wine are so often cut, that their sap spendeth into the grapes. Bacon.
  4. (Mining) To break ground; to continue working.

Webster 1913