spend
Americanverb (used with object)
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spends,
present (3rd person singular)
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spent,
past participle, past
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spending
present participle
-
to pay out, disburse, or expend; dispose of (money, wealth, resources, etc.).
resisting the temptation to spend one's money.
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to employ (labor, thought, words, time, etc.), as on some object or in some proceeding.
Don't spend much time on it.
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to pass (time) in a particular manner, place, etc..
We spent a few days in Baltimore.
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to use up, consume, or exhaust.
The storm had spent its fury.
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to give (one's blood, life, etc.) for some cause.
verb (used without object)
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spends,
present (3rd person singular)
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spent,
past participle, past
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spending
present participle
-
to spend money, energy, time, etc.
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Obsolete. to be consumed or exhausted.
verb
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to pay out (money, wealth, etc)
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(tr) to concentrate (time, effort, thought, etc) upon an object, activity, etc
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(tr) to pass (time) in a specific way, activity, place, etc
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(tr) to use up completely
the hurricane spent its force
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(tr) to give up (one's blood, life, etc) in a cause
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obsolete (intr) to be used up or exhausted
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informal to urinate
noun
Synonym Usage
Spend, disburse, expend, squander refer to paying out money. Spend is the general word: We spend more for living expenses now. Disburse implies expending from a specific source or sum to meet specific obligations, or paying in definite allotments: The treasurer has authority to disburse funds. Expend is more formal, and implies spending for some definite and (usually) sensible or worthy object: to expend most of one's salary on necessities. Squander suggests lavish, wasteful, or foolish expenditure: to squander a legacy.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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spendsimple
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spendssimple
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have spentperfect
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has spentperfect
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am spendingprogressive
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are spendingprogressive
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is spendingprogressive
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have been spendingperfect progressive
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has been spendingperfect progressive
Past
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spentsimple
-
had spentperfect
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was spendingprogressive
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were spendingprogressive
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had been spendingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of spend
First recorded in 1125–75; Middle English spenden, continuing Old English -spendan (in āspendan, forspendan “to spend entirely or utterly”), from West Germanic, from Latin expendere “to pay out, spend, expend” ( see expend); compare German spenden
Explanation
When you use money or time, you spend it. If you spend a lot of time at the mall, you'll probably also spend money there. The verb spend is good for talking about passing time on a particular activity or living in one place for a length of time: "He went on to spend years in India." When you spend money, you pay it in return for something, like when you spend five dollars on a bottle of water at the airport or spend your savings on a trip around the world. The Latin root expendere means "to weigh out money."
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:
If the sauce needs nothing from me, I can spend that energy making dessert, mixing a cocktail for guests, warming bread — or simply deciding which sparkling water sounds good.
From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2026
She and her husband were working harder and harder but weren’t managing to spend time with their kids, let alone get ahead financially.
From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2026
At first, he struggled with relatively simple questions such as “How would you spend your first day of retirement?”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
For termites that spend almost their entire lives hidden from view, those biological clues may ultimately make them much harder to hide.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
Tante Jans, Mama’s older sister, had moved in with us when her husband died to spend, as she put it, “what few days remain to me,” though she was still only in her early forties.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
In “Resident Evil,” Abrams’ Bryan spends much of his lonely mission muttering to himself in annoyance and sometimes victory, much like a gamer would.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
The average U.S. household spends about $1,100 each month on transportation, twice as much as this budget allocates.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
Higher levels of CO2 can drive magma rapidly upward from deep underground, while water can become more important when magma spends more time at shallower depths.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 14, 2026
“Go back and see what Jesus spends most of his time doing. It’s not preaching, it’s not teaching, it’s healing,” Mr. Talarico said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
She spends most of the evening in one of the chairs by the fire, watching events unfold around her rather than participating in them directly.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
The Top Gear star spent two weeks in a coma after the crash and returned to the show in early 2007.
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026
But when urine from a different cat was introduced, their interest rose again, and they spent more time sniffing.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026
Then, in November, when he was 25, he spent just under $400,000 to buy the home directly across the street from me.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
“I spent 25 years as an oil and gas engineer,” he wrote on social media.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2026
It felt like she was stealing time Dad should have spent with me and Celia, flaunting how close they were.
From "Keeping Pace" by Laurie Morrison
Average monthly spending on the program totaled $12 billion from April to September 2020, a 61% jump from a year earlier, according to the Agriculture Department.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
His dedication to spending time in Mexico, while inconvenient for your relationship, demonstrates that he knows how to manage and nurture his own happiness and isn’t relying on you to satisfy that need.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 19, 2026
In the bottom three after spending over £300m in the summer there appears to be no end in sight to Spurs' struggles.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
This is the maximum amount you should be spending, no matter who you’re flying to see.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 19, 2026
And sure, on some bitter cold mornings, especially in the late winter, when there was freezing rain instead of snow, I would dream about climbing into my bed and spending hours there.
From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy
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.
