dispenses

Verb

dispense (third-person singular simple present dispenses, present participle dispensing, simple past and past participle dispensed)

1. To issue, distribute, or give out.
   • He is delighted to dispense a share of it to all the company.1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown...
2. To apply, as laws to particular cases; to administer; to execute; to manage; to direct.
   • to dispense justice
3. To supply or make up a medicine or prescription.
   • The pharmacist dispensed my tablets.
4. (particularly in canon law) To give a dispensation to (someone); to excuse.
   • After his victories, he often gave them the reines to all licenciousnesse, for a while dispencing them from all rules of military discipline[…].1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 34, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
5. (intransitive, obsolete) To compensate; to make up; to make amends.
   • One loving howre / For many yeares of sorrow can dispence1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 30

See all 7 meanings of dispense