spare no expense
spare no expense verb: to be willing to pay as much as necessary to achieve an objective.
Verb
spare no expense (third-person singular simple present spares no expense, present participle sparing no expense, simple past and past participle spared no expense)
- To be willing to pay as much as necessary to achieve an objective.
- The railways are fully alive to the position, and are sparing neither effort nor expense to provide more attractive trains and to effect economies, but in such circumstances some curtailment of services is inevitable.1958 May, “Railway Difficulties in the U.S.A.”, in Railway Magazine, page 296
- From 1860, the steamer service between Kingstown and Holyhead was operated by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, which never spared expense in providing up-to-date vessels, and in meeting a portion of the cost of improvements to Carlisle Pier.1960 May, K. A. Murray, “Carlisle Pier, Dun Laoghaire”, in Railway Magazine, page 303
Forms of spare no expense
| third-person singular present | spares no expense |
|---|---|
| present participle | sparing no expense |
| past participle | spared no expense |
| past | spared no expense |
Questions about spare no expense
- What does spare no expense mean?
- Spare no expense means to be willing to pay as much as necessary to achieve an objective.
- What part of speech is spare no expense?
- Spare no expense is a verb.
- What is the past tense of spare no expense?
- The past tense of spare no expense is spared no expense.
Words near spare no expense in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spare no expense (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.
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