dispense

English

Etymology

From Middle English, from Old French dispenser, from Latin dispēnsāre (“to weigh out, pay out, distribute, regulate, manage, control, dispense”), frequentative of dispendere (“to weigh out”), from dis- (“apart”) + pendere (“to weigh”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɪˈspɛns/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛns
• Hyphenation: dis‧pense

Verb

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

1. To issue, distribute, or give out.
   • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, ; and Archibald Constable and Co., , →OCLC:

     He is delighted to dispense a share of it to all the company.

   • 1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber and Faber, published 2005, page 40:

     The smoky spray seemed to trap whatever light there was and to dispense it subtly.

2. To apply, as laws to particular cases; to administer; to execute; to manage; to direct.

   to dispense justice

   • 1662, John Dryden, To the Lord Chancellor Hyde:

     While you dispense the laws, and guide the state.

3. To supply or make up a medicine or prescription.

   The pharmacist dispensed my tablets.

   An optician can dispense spectacles.

4. (obsolete) To give a dispensation to (someone); to excuse.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 34, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes , book II, London: Val Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC:

     After his victories, he often gave them the reines to all licenciousnesse, for a while dispencing them from all rules of military discipline […].

   • 1643, John Milton, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce:

     Of evils the first and greatest is, that hereby a most absurd and rash imputation is fixt upon God and his holy Laws, of conniving and dispensing with open and common adultery among his chosen people; a thing which the rankest politician would think it shame and disworship, that his Laws should countenance; how and in what manner this comes to passe, I shall reserve, till the course of method brings on the unfolding of many Scriptures.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 11, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     It was resolved that all members of the House who held commissions, should be dispensed from parliamentary attendance.

   • 1779–81, Samuel Johnson, "Richard Savage" in Lives of the Most Eminent English Poet

     He appeared to think himself born to be supported by others, and dispensed from all necessity of providing for himself.

5. (intransitive, obsolete) To compensate; to make up; to make amends.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 30:

     One loving howre / For many yeares of sorrow can dispence

   • c. 1386–1390, John Gower, edited by Reinhold Pauli, Confessio Amantis of John Gower: Edited and Collated with the Best Manuscripts, volumes (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Bell and Daldy , published 1857, →OCLC:

     His synne was dispensed with golde, wherof it was compensed

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Derived terms

• dispensary
• dispenser
• dispense with

Translations

Noun

dispense (countable and uncountable, plural dispenses)

1. (obsolete) Cost, expenditure.
2. (obsolete) The act of dispensing, dispensation.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     […] what euer in this worldly state / Is sweet, and pleasing vnto liuing sense, / Or that may dayntiest fantasie aggrate, / Was poured forth with plentifull dispence […]

Derived terms

• dispensable
• dispensation
• dispensative
• dispensatory

Translations

Related terms

• dispend

Further reading

• “dispense”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “dispense”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “dispense”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• despines, piedness

French

Etymology

Deverbal from dispenser.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɑ̃s

Noun

dispense f (plural dispenses)

1. dispensation

Verb

dispense

1. inflection of dispenser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “dispense”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Anagrams

• pendisse

Italian

Noun

dispense f

1. plural of dispensa

Verb

dispense

1. third-person singular past historic of dispegnere

Anagrams

• pendessi

Portuguese

Verb

dispense

1. inflection of dispensar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Spanish

Verb

dispense

1. inflection of dispensar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative