dispense
Americanverb (used with object)
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to deal out; distribute.
to dispense wisdom.
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to administer.
to dispense the law without bias.
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Pharmacology. to make up and distribute (medicine), especially on prescription.
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Roman Catholic Church. to grant dispensation.
verb (used without object)
noun
verb phrase
verb
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(tr) to give out or issue in portions
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(tr) to prepare and distribute (medicine), esp on prescription
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(tr) to administer (the law, etc)
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to do away (with) or manage (without)
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to grant a dispensation to (someone) from (some obligation of church law)
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to exempt or excuse from a rule or obligation
Usage
Dispense with is sometimes wrongly used where dispose of is meant: this task can be disposed of (not dispensed with ) quickly and easily
Synonym Usage
See distribute.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dispensesimple
-
dispensessimple
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have dispensedperfect
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has dispensedperfect
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am dispensingprogressive
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are dispensingprogressive
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is dispensingprogressive
-
have been dispensingperfect progressive
-
has been dispensingperfect progressive
Past
-
dispensedsimple
-
had dispensedperfect
-
was dispensingprogressive
-
were dispensingprogressive
-
had been dispensingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dispense
1275–1325; Middle English dispensen < Medieval Latin dispēnsāre to pardon, exempt, Latin: to pay out, distribute, equivalent to dis- dis- 1 + pēnsāre, frequentative of pendere to weigh
Explanation
To dispense means to give out or distribute something. A school nurse can dispense students' medication and we all can dispense advice. The word dispense comes from the Old French word dispenser, meaning "give out." You can dispense anything from hand sanitizer to dating advice. When dispense is paired with with it means "get rid of it" or "skip." If you dispense with traditional Thanksgiving dishes, you might instead celebrate with pizza, pancakes, tacos — anything but turkey and all the fixings.
Vocabulary lists containing dispense
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Tears of a Tiger
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One of the FDA’s concerns is that the agency doesn’t have any information about the containers that would be used by compounding pharmacies to dispense the medication.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
"If we allow this to happen, no judge will be able to dispense justice," he said.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
In February, Monsanto proposed another multi-billion dollar class settlement to dispense with claims that Roundup causes cancer.
From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026
Hospitals are also contracting with more pharmacies, which are paid a kickback to dispense medicines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Because of Chapel Hill High School’s strict Zero Tolerance Policy toward drugs, the school nurse had to dispense all medications for Chapel Hill High School students.
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
This streamlined version—co-written with Leonard Mlodinow, a physicist and popular-science author—retains explanations of vital topics, such as the curvature of spacetime and Einstein’s theory of relativity, but dispenses with the drier sections.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
Azerbaijan's singer Jiva is much more ruthless as she dispenses with a lover on the cinematic ballad Just Go.
From BBC ● May 8, 2026
In other places, the document dispenses with ambiguity altogether.
From Salon ● Dec. 9, 2025
She also conducts research for patients—from cancer treatment to skin care—and dispenses advice that other doctors might not; a patient recently texted to ask if the foundation makeup she was considering was “clean beauty.”
From Barron's ● Nov. 12, 2025
But the machine in the corridor dispenses only coffee, tepid at best, in paper cups.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
As the show’s host, Queen Latifah dispensed uplifting thoughts about American idealism throughout the evening but also got a slot of her own to do her classic “U.N.I.T.Y.” with help from a rambunctious drum line.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 5, 2026
Zhao Xuan, 28, who tells the BBC that her parents dispensed so much "gourd soup literature" that she has muted her family group chat.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
His subjects, he tells us, have dispensed with outmoded theology and instead put ritual to its proper use as a useful technological aid to social connection and cohesion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
Check your ego: Falardeau recalls the sage advice dispensed, politely, by one of his predecessors at Scioto, the late Walker Inman, who was a former pro-tour player.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
I had no hair to wash, because the shower also dispensed a nontoxic hair-removing solution that I rubbed all over my face and body.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
Here she remade herself as a low-key singer-songwriter dispensing wise yet unflashy tunes about love, home and family — part of a gentle resetting of pop’s mood after the turmoil of the previous decade.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
Warsh hinted at a blizzard of changes ahead, but the biggest arguably may be dispensing with consideration of the markets’ reaction to the Fed’s words.
From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026
We also found that the rate of serious adverse events was significantly higher after the FDA removed the in-person dispensing requirement.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 10, 2026
The agency should use this pause as an opportunity to reinstate permanently in-person dispensing and physician-led follow-up visits, which are necessary to protect women’s health and freedom.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026
Today, Hasina was dispensing advice on how to fend off unattractive suitors.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
