Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use spend in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Spend means to pay out (money). Example: “I've already spent hundreds of dollars buying dog chow.”

Examples of spend by meaning

verbTo pay out (money).

  • I've already spent hundreds of dollars buying dog chow.
  • He spends far more on gambling than he does on living proper.
  • We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

verbTo squander.

  • to spend an estate in gambling

verbTo exhaust, to wear out.

  • The violence of the waves was spent.

verbTo consume, to use up (time).

  • My sister usually spends her free time in nightclubs.
  • We spent the winter in the south of France.
  • Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame.2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4

verbTo have an orgasm; to ejaculate sexually.

  • The fish spends his semen on eggs which he finds floating and whose mother he has never seen.

verbTo waste or wear away; to be consumed.

  • Energy spends in the using of it.

nounAmount of money spent (during a period); expenditure.

  • I’m sorry, boss, but the advertising spend exceeded the budget again this month.

nounExpenditures; money or pocket money.

  • Total January spends by year2011 February 1, Ami Sedghi, “Record breaking January transfers: find the spends by club”, in The Guardian

More sentences with spend

  • The politician gave a somewhat abstract answer when asked about their plans to cut spending.From the entry abstract
  • You're fun to spend time with, but I'm not that into you.From the entry that
  • I really need to get into the habit of writing down what I spend.From the entry habit
  • John seems to spend as much time travelling as he does in the office.From the entry travel
  • The city council spends thousands of pounds removing graffiti from public buildings.From the entry graffiti
  • I don't like to spend time on my hairstyle, so I usually just wear a do-rag.From the entry do
  • He was broke after spending all his money into video games.From the entry broke
  • It is congress's duty to oversee the spending of federal funds.From the entry oversee
  • I'm sick of spending every day studying at home: I want to go out there and live!From the entry live
  • The directors voted on the question of whether to increase the R&D spending.From the entry vote
  • The teacher had to spend her weekend marking all the tests.From the entry mark
  • Your brain will rot if you spend so much time on the computer, Tony!From the entry rot
  • This breakthrough will mean that we spend less on the electricity bill.From the entry will
  • I've been spending an unholy amount of time trying to write a novel!From the entry unholy
  • We like to spend our Sundays lounging about at home in our pyjamas.From the entry lounge
  • Father spends all his time in the study poring over manuscripts.From the entry study
  • I spend a lot of time thinking of Karen and the times we shared.From the entry think of
  • The criminal has been wreaked by the Judge to spend a year in prison.From the entry wreak
  • My obsession with rugby resulted in me spending years following the sport.From the entry obsession
  • While this new measure provided money for research, it also purported to cut spending overall.From the entry overall
  • Most teenagers seem to spend almost the whole day emailing and surfing the Web.From the entry email
  • They had a helluva row over where to spend the weekend.From the entry helluva
  • With memory that slow, the processor is going to spend most of its time on wait states.From the entry wait state
  • You want to spend a thousand pounds on a pair of shoes? Are you mad?From the entry mad
  • After spending an hour stuck in the mud, we could once again move forward.From the entry forward
  • The Federal budget lays out government spending for the upcoming budget year.From the entry upcoming
  • It would be lovely to have a little more money to spend.From the entry lovely
  • They wouldn't go near that place, never mind spending an entire day there.From the entry never mind

Meaning of spend

  1. verb To pay out (money).
  2. verb To bestow; to employ; often with on or upon.
  3. verb To squander.

Full definition of spend

Questions about spend in a sentence

How do you use spend in a sentence?
Spend is used as a verb and noun. For example: “I've already spent hundreds of dollars buying dog chow.”
What is a short sentence with spend?
“Total January spends by year”
What does spend mean?
Spend means to pay out (money).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spend (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use spend in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/spend. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.