noun
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something expended, such as time or money
-
the act of expending
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of expenditure
1760–70; < Medieval Latin expendit ( us ) laid out, paid (variant of expēnsus, past participle of expendere; see expend) + -ure
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.
Vocabulary lists containing expenditure
100 SAT Words Beginning with "E"
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Theodore Roosevelt on "New Nationalism" (1910)
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Economics
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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:
According to the Department for Education,, external the average total expenditure on school uniform, based on the items required in the school year 2023/24, was just under £250 and PE kit cost just under £140.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
Tokyo raised its military expenditure by 9.7 percent to $62.2 billion in 2025 -- equivalent to 1.4 percent of GDP, its highest share since 1958.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
Morgan Stanley assumes roughly A$1.8 billion in growth capital expenditure will be needed for the project.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Hunger hormones surge, food cravings intensify and energy expenditure drops.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 4, 2026
For myself, I found that I was expressing my tendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronise Herbert, and to boast of my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my lips.
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
The company posted $18.4 billion in capital expenditures during the quarter, with executives projecting similar capital spending through the rest of the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
SpaceX booked second-quarter capital expenditures of more than $18 billion, or nearly 40% higher than analysts had modeled.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
Elon Musk’s space company late Tuesday said its capital expenditures topped $18 billion last quarter, double the previous quarter’s total, mainly tied to its artificial-intelligence build-out.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
Novo’s capital expenditures skyrocketed by 664% in three years to about $6.5 billion in 2024, regulatory filings show, not including the $11 billion acquisition of Catalent’s manufacturing facilities.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
Adjusting for inflation, these figures reflect a tripling of justice expenditures since 1982.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
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.
