Definition of "expense"

expense

/ɪkˈspɛns/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural expenses
1. A spending or consuming, often a disbursement of funds.
  Quotations
  Husband nature's riches from expense.
  c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 44
2. The elimination or consumption of something, sometimes with the notion of loss or damage to the thing eliminated.
3. (obsolete) Loss.
  Quotations
  And moan the expense of many a vanished sight.
  c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30
verb
third-person singular simple present expenses, present participle expensing, simple past and past participle expensed
1. (transitive) To charge a cost against an expense account; to bill something to the company for which one works.