Definition of "dispense"

dispense

/dɪˈspɛns/

verb
third-person singular simple present dispenses, present participle dispensing, simple past and past participle dispensed
1. To issue, distribute, or give out.
  Quotations
  He is delighted to dispense a share of it to all the company.
  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., […]
  The smoky spray seemed to trap whatever light there was and to dispense it subtly.
  1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber and Faber, published 2005, page 40
2. To apply, as laws to particular cases; to administer; to execute; to manage; to direct.
  Quotations
  While you dispense the laws, and guide the state.
  1662, John Dryden, To the Lord Chancellor Hyde
3. To supply or make up a medicine or prescription.
4. (obsolete) To give a dispensation to (someone); to excuse.
  Quotations
  After his victories, he often gave them the reines to all licenciousnesse, for a while dispencing them from all rules of military discipline […].
  1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 34, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]
  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.
  1643, John Milton, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
  It was resolved that all members of the House who held commissions, should be dispensed from parliamentary attendance.
  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
  He appeared to think himself born to be supported by others, and dispensed from all necessity of providing for himself.
  1779–81, Samuel Johnson, "Richard Savage" in Lives of the Most Eminent English Poet
5. (intransitive, obsolete) To compensate; to make up; to make amends.
  Quotations
  One loving howre / For many yeares of sorrow can dispence
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 30
  His synne was dispensed with golde, wherof it was compensed(please add an English translation of this quotation)
  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
noun
countable and uncountable, plural dispenses
1. (obsolete) Cost, expenditure.
2. (obsolete) The act of dispensing, dispensation.
  Quotations
  […] 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 […]
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

Definition of "dispense"

dispense

verb

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noun

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