[f. med.L. expendit-us, pa. pple. (irregularly formed after venditus) of expendĕre (see EXPEND) + -URE.]
1. The action or practice of laying out, paying away, or spending (money). Const. of. At his own expenditure (nonce-use): at his own expense.
1769. Burke, On late State Nation, 15. Our expenditure purchased commerce and conquest.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., IV. ix. The collection and expenditure of the public revenue.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, 317. His shop … turned out the masterpiece … at his own expenditure.
1874. Green, Short Hist., vii. 364. Her [Elizabeth’s] expenditure was … ever miserly.
b. transf. The expending or laying out (of energy, labor, time): often with notion of waste.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. v. (1865), 45. To grudge at the expenditure of moments.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 30. He disliked all quarrelling as an unpleasant expenditure of energy.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, 54. After a vast expenditure of pains.
1890. Spectator, 16 Aug., 202/2. The Nationalist laity disobey with much expenditure of speech.
c. The action or process of using up or consuming; consumption.
1812. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., IX. 141. We have made such an expenditure of engineers, that I can hardly wish for any body.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., I. i. § 14. 96. A peculiar expenditure of the substance of the muscular mass.
1864. H. Spencer, Princ. Biol., I. II. v. § 69. 196. A mature animal, or one which has reached a balance between assimilation and expenditure.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (ed. 6), I. xvi. 427. Its [the sun’s] combustion would only cover 4600 years of expenditure.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., II. 194/2. The economical expenditure of ammunition.
2. The amount expended from time to time.
1791. R. Rayment (title), The Income and Expenditure of Great Britain of the last 7 years.
a. 1800. Cowper, Sparrows self-domesticated. A single doit would overpay The expenditure of every day.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, III. 331. A loss of life and waste of expenditure.
1863. P. Barry, Dockyard Econ., 99. During the year 1860–61 the expenditure in these [mast-houses] amounted to [etc.].
