expenditure

American  

[ik-spen-di-cher] / ɪkˈspɛn dɪ tʃər /

noun

• expenditures
  plural

1. the act of expending something, especially funds; disbursement; consumption.

2. something that is expended; expense.

   Unnecessary expenditures include those for luxury items.

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expenditure British  

/ ɪkˈspɛndɪtʃə /

noun

1. something expended, such as time or money

2. the act of expending

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• overexpenditure
  noun
• preexpenditure
  noun
• superexpenditure
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• expenditures
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of expenditure

1760–70; < Medieval Latin expendit ( us ) laid out, paid (variant of expēnsus, past participle of expendere; see expend) + -ure

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Explanation

In a trip budget, you need to add up all your expenditures, such as hotel, car rental and food costs against the money you have brought to spend. An expenditure is money spent on something. Expenditure is often used when people are talking about budgets. It is the government's job to decide what to do with tax money collected, or in other words, to determine the expenditure of public funds. The word is more than a long way of saying expense. In business, an expenditure implies an investment, something that will bring value over time.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

expenditure expenditures

Birds that had not carried weights while growing up experienced a 23% increase in energy expenditure when walking with the added load compared with walking without it.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026

Paris will never get its numbers to add up if such an expenditure can’t be debated or reformed.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

Amazon has said it plans to spend $220 billion on capital expenditure this year, almost double what it spent in 2025.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 2, 2026

With one of the highest wage bills in the world, maintaining that level of salary expenditure, even for a club as financially capable as City, will become harder without Premier League-level income.

From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026

Every year or two the relative positions of the planets and the physics of Kepler and Newton permit the launch of a spacecraft to Mars or Venus with a minimum expenditure of energy.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

A key driver of expenditures was the rising interest paid on public debt, which jumped $144 billion to a record $1.36 trillion.

From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026

And she pointed out that Raman, as head of the council’s powerful housing and homelessness committee, regularly signed off on the reports showing the expenditures on the mayor’s program.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026

While the term has no standard definition under accounting rules, free cash flow is typically calculated as cash flow from operating activities minus capital expenditures, or capex.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Both AI companies have skyrocketing capital expenditures, and the coming months are critical in showing Wall Street they have sustainable businesses and revenue streams to back up trillion-plus dollar valuations.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

Claudia appointed him treasurer; he would not only hold all the money, he would also keep track of it and pass judgment on all expenditures.

From "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg

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Related Words

• amount
• consumption
• cost
• disbursement
• expense
• figure
• investment
• outlay
• output
• price
• rate
• spending
• value

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