Spending

How to spell spending

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce spending

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does spending mean?

1. nounThe act of using money to buy goods or services, or the amount of money used in this way.
2. verbPresent participle of spend: using money or time for a purpose.

Spending in a sentence

• noun

  The council cut spending on road repairs this year.

• verb

  She is spending the afternoon sorting through old invoices.

• noun

  Household spending rose sharply over the winter months.

• verb

  They are spending far more on rent than they expected.

Where does spending come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on the verb spend, which came into Old English as spendan, meaning 'to pay out' or 'to use up'. That early English verb was itself borrowed from the Latin expendere, formed from ex- 'out' and pendere 'to weigh or pay', because in the ancient world money was literally weighed out on scales. The same pendere root surrounds us in modern English through 'pension', 'expense', and 'pendant', all of which carry a sense of weighing, paying, or hanging. The -ing ending turns the verb into a noun or present participle, giving us 'spending' as both the ongoing act of paying out and a label for the money itself. The spelling stays refreshingly regular, since the silent or doubled letters that trip people elsewhere simply do not appear here.

How the word is built

• spend (from Old English spendan: to pay out)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)