dispense: [14] Dispense comes ultimately from Latin dispendere ‘weigh out’ (partial source of English spend). This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘away’ and pendere ‘weigh’, a relative of pendēre ‘hang’, from which English gets pendulum, pendant, and penthouse. It had a derivative, dispensāre, denoting repeated action: hence ‘pay out, distribute’, senses which passed into English via Old French dispenser. In medieval Latin dispensāre also came to mean ‘administer justice’, and hence ‘exempt, condone’; this was the source of the English usage dispense with ‘do without’. => pendulum, pendant, penthouse, spend
dispense (v.)
early 14c., from Old French dispenser "give out" (13c.), from Latin dispensare "disburse, administer, distribute (by weight)," frequentative of dispendere "pay out," from dis- "out" (see dis-) + pendere "to pay, weigh" (see pendant).
In Medieval Latin, dispendere was used in the ecclesiastical sense of "grant license to do what is forbidden or omit what is required" (a power of popes, bishops, etc.), and thus acquired a sense of "grant remission from punishment or exemption from law," hence "to do away with" (1570s), "do without" (c. 1600). Older sense is preserved in dispensary. Related: Dispensed; dispensing.
双语例句
1. For two weeks, the cash machine was unable to dispense money.
该自动取款机已有两个星期不能提供现金。
来自柯林斯例句
2. We'd dispense with charity drives.
我们将不再进行慈善捐款运动.
来自《简明英汉词典》
3. I can dispense with this dictionary.
我没有这本词典也行.
来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
4. It's all part of a conspiracy to dispense with the town centre all together and move everything out to Meadowhall.
彻底抛开市中心而把所有东西都搬到梅多霍尔购物中心,这完全是一场阴谋的一部分.
来自柯林斯例句
5. We cannot dispense with the idea of the speed of light.
