To issue, distribute, or give out.
He is delighted to dispense a share of it to all the company.
To apply, as laws to particular cases; to administer; to execute; to manage; to direct.
to dispense justice
To supply or make up a medicine or prescription.
The pharmacist dispensed my tablets.
Cost, expenditure.
The act of dispensing, dispensation.
[…] 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 […]
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...
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