Expenditure

How to spell expenditure

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce expenditure

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does expenditure mean?

1. nounThe act of spending money, or the amount of money spent.

Expenditure in a sentence

• The council reduced its expenditure on road repairs this year.

• Household expenditure rose sharply after the energy prices climbed.

Where does expenditure come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb expendere, which meant 'to weigh out' and so 'to pay out', built from ex- meaning 'out' and pendere meaning 'to weigh' or 'to pay'. In ancient times payments were literally weighed in metal, so the idea of weighing and the idea of spending money were tightly linked, which is why the same root gives us 'pay', 'pension', and 'expense'. English already had the verb 'expend' by the late medieval period, and the noun 'expenditure' was formed from it around the early 1700s, modelled on medieval Latin expenditus, a variant past participle. The tricky middle of the word, the '-pend-' that becomes '-pendi-' before the ending, comes straight from that 'weighing out' root. Remembering that it grows from 'expend' plus '-iture' helps explain the unexpected '-iture' spelling rather than a simpler '-ature' or '-iture' guess.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• pend (weigh, pay out)
• -iture (noun suffix)