What does expense mean?
Word: Expense
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Expense means the amount of money you have to spend on something.
Synonyms: charge, spending, outlay
Antonyms: income, saving, profit
How do you spell expense?
Syllables: ex - pense
Tricky part: The ending is se, not ce. Students write expence because fence and pence end in ce, but expense goes with sense and dense.
Watch out for: expence, expens
Memory tip: Spending needs sense, and expense ends exactly like sense.
Idioms and Phrases
- at the expense of: causing harm or loss to something else Example: "He finished the video game at the expense of his homework."
- spare no expense: spend as much as is needed to make something excellent Example: "For the school's golden jubilee, the trustees spared no expense on the lighting."
Expense in a sentence
Example 1: Travelling by train is a smaller expense than flying.
Example 2: Papa writes down every household expense in a small diary.
Example 3: The hostel fees were a big expense for the family.
Fun Fact
Expense and spend both go back to the Latin expendere, to weigh out or pay out, from a time when coins were weighed on scales before payment.
Practise the CREST Way
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the word in the sentence and choose it:
The nxepees of running the hostel rose sharply when food prices went up.
a) expert
b) expanse
c) expense
d) excess
Show answer
c) expense. Expanse needs an a, and excess and expert are a letter short; only expense uses all seven.
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word expense as used in the sentence:
The family saved for two years to meet the expense of the trip to Iceland.
a) timing
b) cost
c) comfort
d) route
Show answer
b) cost. Cost is the money something needs, the same as its expense here.
Spell-o-Spell
Only one of these words is spelt correctly. Choose its meaning:
1. expense 2. reciept 3. budjet 4. alowance
a) money given regularly to spend
b) a slip that shows you have paid
c) money paid out for something
d) a plan for spending money
Show answer
c) money paid out for something. Expense is right. Reciept swaps e and i, budjet uses a j in place of the g, and alowance is short of an l.
Word Cookie
Fill in the missing letters to complete the word:
ex_e_se
a) p, r
b) b, n
c) p, m
d) p, n
Show answer
d) p, n. Ex is followed by a p, as in expert, and the n before the s is the n of tense.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. For a family, which of these is an expense?
a) the monthly electricity bill
b) a salary paid into the bank
c) a cash gift from a relative
d) interest earned on savings
Show answer
a) the monthly electricity bill
2. A staff trip paid for at the firm's expense is paid for by ____.
a) the company
b) the workers
c) the government
d) the customers
Show answer
a) the company
