spend

Etymology

From Middle English spenden, from Old English spendan (attested especially in compounds āspendan (“to spend”), forspendan (“to use up, consume”)), from Proto-West Germanic *spendōn (“to spend”), borrowed from Latin expendere (“to weigh out”). Doublet of expend. Cognate with Old High German spentōn (“to consume, use, spend”) (whence German spenden (“to donate, provide”)), Middle Dutch spenden (“to spend, dedicate”), Old Icelandic spenna (“to spend”).

verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To pay out (money).
   He spends far more on gambling than he does on living proper.
   Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. 2013-05-25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74
2. To bestow; to employ; often with on or upon.
3. (dated) To squander.
   to spend an estate in gambling
4. To exhaust, to wear out.
   The violence of the waves was spent.
5. To consume, to use up (time).
   My sister usually spends her free time in nightclubs.
   We spent the winter in the south of France.
   During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant[…] 1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond
   We tiptoed into the house, up the stairs and along the hall into the room where the Professor had been spending so much of his time. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 13, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   The last occasion on which the Kaiser [Wilhelm II] used this train was for an inglorious journey into Holland towards the end of the 1914 war. He spent the night in it at Eysden [Eijsden], while the Queen of the Netherlands and a hastily summoned Cabinet debated what to do with him. 1945 September and October, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Royal Trains—V”, in Railway Magazine, page 251
   Clara's father, a trollish ne'er-do-well who spent most of his time in brothels and saloons, would disappear for days and weeks at a stretch, leaving Clara and her mother to fend for themselves. 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 26
   Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. 2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4
6. (dated, transitive, intransitive) To have an orgasm; to ejaculate sexually.
   The fish spends his semen on eggs which he finds floating and whose mother he has never seen.
7. (intransitive) To waste or wear away; to be consumed.
   Energy spends in the using of it.
8. To be diffused; to spread.
9. (mining) To break ground; to continue working.

noun

1. Amount of money spent (during a period); expenditure.
   I’m sorry, boss, but the advertising spend exceeded the budget again this month.
2. (in the plural) Expenditures; money or pocket money.
   Total January spends by year 2011-02-01, Ami Sedghi, “Record breaking January transfers: find the spends by club”, in The Guardian
   The spends have been made by our strategic partners […] 2011, “Council spending over £500”, in Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, retrieved 2012-01-26
3. Discharged semen.
4. Vaginal discharge.