SPENDS Synonyms: 98 Similar and Opposite Words

spends

verb

present tense third-person singular of spend

as in pays

to hand over or use up in payment I always end up spending too much money at the mall

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in consumes

to make complete use of the town has already spent its budget for snow removal, and it's only January

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in loses

to use up carelessly spent all his energy on impractical schemes

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of spends Country music star Randy Houser spends a lot of his life on the road, but when the shows are over and the tour bus stops rolling, there's usually one thing on his mind. — Amber Harding Outkick, FOXNews.com, 21 Oct. 2026 Every year, Santos spends months back home in the Yukon as the official sign painter of Dawson City, preserving its history on behalf of the Canadian government. — Nina Corcoran, Pitchfork, 21 Oct. 2026 Keith Castello spends a lot of time praying about available real estate. — Tiffany Stanley, Fortune, 21 Oct. 2026 Weigand spends much of his time on house calls, reviving cherished heirlooms that have long fallen silent. — La'tasha Givens, CBS News, 20 Oct. 2026 The new Miami Vice movie quickly got the greenlight Tuesday for a $1 million county subsidy if the production spends big in Miami-Dade County. — Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald, 20 Oct. 2026 In Bethany Joy Lenz’s debut fiction novel, a painter spends her days honoring ordinary women the world overlooked — ones whose deaths were caused or enabled by a system that ignores them. — Lexy Perez, HollywoodReporter, 20 Oct. 2026 Any empire that spends more servicing its debt than defending itself risks losing its imperial status. — Niall Ferguson, Foreign Affairs, 20 Oct. 2026 Compared to a woman who spends her days toiling to defend some of America’s most underserved, Lee’s a man who wrote a puff piece about some rich, white dude. — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 15 Oct. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for spends

Verb

So instead of making teams whole each time, the NFL now just pays teams’ travel expenses for their international game under the rationale that every team will lose a home game—and, in turn, home game ticket revenue—during that time.

— Eben Novy-Williams, Sportico.com, 16 Oct. 2026
The result is a politics in which almost everyone agrees that reform is urgently needed, provided someone else pays, and their own group’s advantages remain untouched.

— Nicholas Bequelin, Time, 16 Oct. 2026

Definition of pays

Verb

Every operation consumes computational resources, while storing intermediate results requires additional qubits.

— Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 16 Oct. 2026
Someone who orally consumes ketamine would typically begin to feel its effects within 20 minutes.

— Christopher P. Holstege, The Conversation, 15 Oct. 2026

Definition of consumes

Verb

BetMGM is offering new users a chance to bet on today’s game and earn up to $1,500 if your first bet loses when using promo code FOXNEWS.

— OutKick, FOXNews.com, 17 Oct. 2026
But what begins as a bold and daring attempt to broach progressive issues in a notoriously conservative society ultimately loses its nerve, acquiescing to a number of eyebrow-raising narrative compromises.

— Guy Lodge, Variety, 11 Oct. 2026

Definition of loses

Verb

But a new federal political action committee gives him a way to start building beyond Pennsylvania.

— Barnini Chakraborty, The Washington Examiner, 17 Oct. 2026
If benefits shrink or get taxed more aggressively down the road (which is a legitimate concern) having a tax-free income source gives you flexibility a pre-tax account simply can’t.

— Jeanne Sahadi, CNN Money, 17 Oct. 2026

Definition of gives

Verb

That pretty much exhausts the points of agreement between the pro- and anti-Proposition 40 camps.

— Business Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 16 Oct. 2026
Instead of occupying both sides with large cooling vents, air enters toward the front of the station and exhausts through the rear.

— Michael Lydick, PC Magazine, 9 Oct. 2026

Definition of exhausts

Verb

The pilot for Eternally Yours wastes its story, larding up on exposition that definitely could have been distributed throughout an entire season.

— Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 8 Oct. 2026
Using the wrong one for your hair type wastes money and delivers no visible result.

— Hanna Wickes, Miami Herald, 7 Oct. 2026

Definition of wastes

Verb

Until, suddenly, the life drains from his eyes, sometimes for barely a second, and returning before anyone else in the scene notices.

— Clayton Davis, Variety, 6 Oct. 2026
The all-in-one dock cleans the spinning dual mops with hot water, dries them with warm air to prevent musty smells, and automatically drains and refills the water tank.

— Juhi Wadia, PC Magazine, 29 Sep. 2026