disburse

English

Etymology

From Old French desbourser (Modern French débourser). By surface analysis, dis- +‎ burse (“purse”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɪsˈbɝs/, [dɪsˈpɝs]

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)s
• Homophone: disperse

Verb

disburse (third-person singular simple present disburses, present participle disbursing, simple past and past participle disbursed)

1. (finance) To pay out, expend; usually from a public fund or treasury.
   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     The consequent traffic is so grave that, last year, councils in England and Wales demanded that the government disburse £1bn a year to them so they could repair roads and tackle congestion.

Usage notes

• Do not confuse with disperse.

Synonyms

(to pay out): shell out (informal), cough up (informal), fork out (informal), fork over (informal)

Derived terms

• disbursement
• disburser
• nondisbursed
• redisburse
• undisbursed

Related terms

• bursar
• reimburse

Translations

to pay out

• Bulgarian: изплащам (bg) (izplaštam), разплащам се (razplaštam se)
• Czech: vyplatit (cs), vydat (z fondu)
• Dutch: uitbetalen (nl)
• Finnish: maksaa (fi), suorittaa maksu, antaa rahaa
• French: débourser (fr)
• Galician: desembolsar
• German: ausschütten (de)
• Hungarian: folyósít (hu), kiutal (hu), kifizet (hu)
• Portuguese: desembolsar, despender (pt)
• Swedish: betala ut

Anagrams

• subsider