expend
verb/ɪkˈspɛnd/ · /ɛkˈspɛnd/
Etymology Borrowed from Latin expendō (“to weigh; to pay out”). Doublet of spend.
1
To consume, exhaust (some resource).
- If my death might make this island happy […] I would expend it with all willingness.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
- So next day the hunting began. I did not know how to shoot, but I proceeded to learn. And when I had expended some thirty shells for three seals, I decided that the ammunition would be exhausted before I acquired the necessary knowledge. I had used eight shells for lighting fires before I hit upon the device of banking the embers with wet moss, and there remained not over a hundred shells in the box.1904, Jack London, chapter 30, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC:
2 more examples
- Here Black expends an important tempo. 11...B-K3 seems better.1962 May, Max Euwe, “Game of the Month”, in Chess Review:
- To handle the unceasing traffic increase, immense sums of money are being expended in dealing with bottlenecks.1962 December, “Beyond the Channel: Switzerland: Federal Railways' progress”, in Modern Railways, page 416:
- Derived terms
- expendable, expender, misexpend
- Related terms
- expenditure, expense, expensive, expent