Word.ws English Dictionary

at the expense of

at the expense of preposition: paid for by an individual or group.

Preposition

at the expense of

  1. Paid for by an individual or group.
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) At one's responsibility.
  3. (figuratively) In a way as to harm somebody or something; to the detriment of.
    • Bengali, like other Aryan languages of India, has spread, and is still spreading, at the expense of the aboriginal tongues.1926, Suniti Kumar Chatterji, The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language, page 3
  4. (figuratively) Of a joke, deriding someone.

at the expense of meaning in Arabic

at the expense of in Arabic

paid for by an individual or group
عَلَى حِسَابِ ʕalā ḥisābi, عَلَى نَفَقَةِ ʕalā nafaqati
in a way as to harm somebody or something
عَلَى حِسَابِ ʕalā ḥisābi

Forms of at the expense of

alternative format one's expense

Questions about at the expense of

What does at the expense of mean?
At the expense of means paid for by an individual or group.
What is at the expense of in Arabic?
At the expense of in Arabic is عَلَى حِسَابِ (ʕalā ḥisābi), عَلَى نَفَقَةِ (ʕalā nafaqati). See At the expense of meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is at the expense of?
At the expense of is a preposition.

Words near at the expense of in the dictionary

  1. at the earliest
  2. at the elbow
  3. at the end of one's tether
  4. at the end of the day
  5. at the end of the rainbow
  6. at the expense of
  7. at the feet of
  8. at the first
  9. at the first brunt
  10. at the hand of
  11. at the hands of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: at the expense of (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-at the expense of.wav.

Cite this entry: “at the expense of.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/at_the_expense_of. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.