dispense
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See also: dispensé
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]- dispence (obsolete)
Etymology
[edit]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
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /dɪˈspɛns/
Audio (General American): (file) - Rhymes: -ɛns
- Hyphenation: dis‧pense
Verb
[edit]dispense (third-person singular simple present dispenses, present participle dispensing, simple past and past participle dispensed)
- To issue, distribute, or give out.
- 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (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.
- 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.
- To supply or make up a medicine or prescription.
- The pharmacist dispensed my tablets.
- An optician can dispense spectacles.
- (particularly in canon law) To give a dispensation to (someone); to excuse.
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 34, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Every spring, the passive aggressive archbishop suffered from a brief flu that dispensed him from needing to provide Easter service to the king.
- She was dispensed from her vows and married Captain von Trapp.
- (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
[edit]Translations
[edit]to issue, distribute, or give out
|
to apply, as laws to particular cases; to administer; to execute; to manage; to direct
to supply or make up a medicine or prescription
|
(obsolete in English) to give a dispensation to someone; to excuse — see also excuse
(obsolete in English) to compensate; to make up; to make amends — see also compensate, make up, make amends
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Noun
[edit]dispense (countable and uncountable, plural dispenses)
- (obsolete) Cost, expenditure.
- (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
[edit]Translations
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “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
[edit]French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- Rhymes: -ɑ̃s
Noun
[edit]dispense f (plural dispenses)
Verb
[edit]dispense
- inflection of dispenser:
Further reading
[edit]- “dispense”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
[edit]Italian
[edit]Noun
[edit]dispense f
Verb
[edit]dispense
- third-person singular past historic of dispegnere
Anagrams
[edit]Portuguese
[edit]Verb
[edit]dispense
- inflection of dispensar:
Spanish
[edit]Verb
[edit]dispense
- inflection of dispensar:
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
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- Rhymes:English/ɛns
- Rhymes:English/ɛns/2 syllables
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- en:Roman Catholicism
- en:Canon law
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- Rhymes:French/ɑ̃s/2 syllables
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- French countable nouns
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