Dispend

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To spend or disburse money, especially in a careless or wasteful manner
2. To allocate resources or funds, often in an imprudent or extravagant way
3. To use money or materials, typically in a reckless or inefficient fashion

Etymology: "Dispend" is an older English verb that has largely fallen out of use, though it survives in some dictionaries and literary contexts. It came into English from Old French "despendre," the ancestor of modern French "dépendre," which carried the sense of spending or paying out money. That Old French word descended from Latin "dispendere," built from "dis-" (apart, in different directions) and "pendere" (to weigh or pay out), so the original image is of weighing out coins and handing them away in portions. The Latin "pendere" is the same root behind English "pension," "pendant" and "expense," which all keep the idea of hanging or weighing. "Dispend" thus shares its ancestry with "expend," a near relative that has stayed in common use. The modern sense of spending extravagantly or imprudently is a later coloring: the word's core meaning is simply to disburse or distribute, and the sense of wastefulness comes from how such outlays were judged.

Synonyms: spend, expend, disburse, allocate, consume

Antonyms: save, conserve, hoard, retain, preserve