Disburse

//dɪsˈbɝs// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To pay out, expend; usually from a public fund or treasury.

    "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."

  2. 2
    expend, as from a fund wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
administerbudgetcostcost outdealdeal out

Antonyms

All antonyms
gather

Example

More examples

"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."

Etymology

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

Related phrases

pay out

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.