expense

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman expense, from Old French espense, from Late Latin expēnsa, from Latin expendō. See expend.

• IPA^(key): /ɪkˈspɛns/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛns

expense (countable and uncountable, plural expenses)

1. A spending or consuming, often a disbursement of funds.

   She went to great expense to ensure her children would get the best education.

   Buying the car was a big expense, but will be worth it in the long run.

   We had a training weekend in New York, at the expense of our company.

   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 44:

     Husband nature's riches from expense.

2. The elimination or consumption of something, sometimes with the notion of loss or damage to the thing eliminated.

   Jones reached the final at the expense of Smith, who couldn't beat him.

3. (obsolete) Loss.
   • (Can we date this quote?)William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30:

     And moan the expense of many a vanished sight.

• (that which is expended): cost, charge, outlay, disbursement, expenditure, payment

• expense account

expense (third-person singular simple present expenses, present participle expensing, simple past and past participle expensed)

1. (transitive) To charge a cost against an expense account; to bill something to the company for which one works.

   It should be acceptable to expense a business lunch with a client.

• expense magazine, (Military): a small magazine containing ammunition for immediate use. - Henry Lee Scot Military Dictionary

expēnse

1. vocative masculine singular of expēnsus

• expense in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• expense in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• expense in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette