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dispense

[dih-spens]

Example Sentences Origin

verb (used with object)

to deal out; distribute: to dispense wisdom.

to administer: to dispense the law without bias.

Pharmacology. to make up and distribute (medicine), especially on prescription.

Roman Catholic Church. to grant dispensation.

verb (used without object)

to grant dispensation.

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Dispense is one of our favorite verbs.

So is bowdlerise. Does it mean:

to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.

to swindle, cheat, hoodwink, or hoax.

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noun

Obsolete. expenditure.

Verb phrase

dispense with,

to do without; forgo: to dispense with preliminaries.

to do away with; rid of.

to grant exemption from a law or promise.

Origin:
1275–1325; Middle English dispensen < Medieval Latin dispēnsāre to pardon, exempt, Latin: to pay out, distribute, equivalent to dis- dis-¹ + pēnsāre, frequentative of pendere to weigh

Related forms

un·dis·pensed, adjective

Synonyms
1. apportion, allot, dole. See distribute.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To dispense

Example Sentences

Bryant learned how to dispense prescription drugs and talk to customers about their medications.

It floors me that a government can so easily dispense with a human life.

Federal prosecutors now allege that many city departments rigged the hiring process to dispense jobs as political favours.

EXPAND

Bryant learned how to dispense prescription drugs and talk to customers about their medications.

It floors me that a government can so easily dispense with a human life.

Federal prosecutors now allege that many city departments rigged the hiring process to dispense jobs as political favours.

Electric cars will require filling stations that dispense electrons rather than gasoline.

And many companies are working on ways to produce, store and dispense hydrogen.

There's even a tap and pressure system to dispense the beer and keep it fizzy down to the last drop.

Penalties against a pharmacy can range from a fine to revocation of its license to dispense drugs.

Tax cuts are not some costly luxury you can dispense with.

The scientific method will naturally dispense with theories whose predictions do not pan out.

In the future, these biological computers could be sent into the bloodstream to dispense drugs or fight bacteria.

Salad servers hold vinegar and oil in their handles, and spoons dispense tea or aspirin.

Doctors in some provinces have been forced to smuggle in the drug, and to dispense it at night.

Some other theories dispense with the need for a magma ocean entirely.

Justice may be blind, but those who dispense it ought not be blindly chosen.

He did not dispense altogether with traditional pre-election sweeteners.

We protect against local bank liquidity crises by creating central banks with the power to dispense liquidity at a national level.

Lastly, many a politician is on the board of the local mutual and finds it an obvious way to dispense patronage.

It is a quality which scientists cannot dispense with.

Another option is to dispense with feeder cells altogether.

Unless, of course, society is willing to dispense with electricity.

He distributes a clinic-in-a-box, a portable supply of medicine that people in isolated villages are trained to dispense.

Research universities not only dispense knowledge, but they also grow.

Her failure there, she says, was that she was unable to dispense justice equally.

To dispense with all those fallen leaves you rake up this month, build a compost pile.

Any pharmacist who cannot dispense medicines lawfully prescribed by a doctor should find another line of work.

With elections possible this year, the government calculates that it is now strong enough to dispense with yellow-shirt support.

So the data allows drug companies to dispense gifts to the right prescribers for their business they are giving the drug company.

Fourteen states have drafted legislation that would allow pharmacists to decline to dispense emergency.

And let's dispense now with the myth that homeschooled children are asocial.

But investors were so keen to chase higher yields that they were willing to dispense with these protections.

Insurers know that some ships will be hijacked, forcing the companies to dispense multimillion-dollar settlements.

And about a half-dozen other vendors of electronic marketing systems now sell various kinds of equipment to dispense coupons.

Of course, the same could be said of professorsLet's dispense with this dichotomous, either-or thinking.

The program scans the incoming data from the glucose monitor and directs the pump to dispense the correct amount of insulin.

In order to command the machine to dispense cash, a thief has to pull up a special menu the coder put into the malware.

Avron then joins a strange circus, whence he hopes to dispense goodwill to the other misfits of the world.

First, let's dispense with the patent falseness of his warrant.

Alternatively, man and machine might dispense with each other and part ways.

And, by having extra on hand, you can dispense charity to your less prudent neighbors….

And the reviewer is tempted to dispense with heavy.

Even our best pharmacies are not practicing sound quality management of how they dispense drugs to patients.

Doctors who dispense health advice often struggle to stick to it themselves.

Dispense with plot, and show nubile young girls engaging in profanities with mathematical shapes zooming in and out of the screen.

The state says penalties against pharmacies for refusal can range from a fine to revocation of its license to dispense drugs.

The cream is already skimmed and incremental subscriber in newer areashas limited propensity to dispense hence low revenues.

But let's dispense with all rhetoric chants left or right and focus instead on the real politiks of.

If you start with a high-quality bird, you can dispense with all seasonings except salt and pepper.

There were glitches, from bank machines that would not dispense the new currency to restaurants that would not accept it.

Better to let an established charity dispense their millions to the.

The better answer is a flat tax structure and dispense with the progressive tax structure.

Let's dispense with the latter immediately, and theatre patrons would do well to arrange their time schedules accordingly.

He first realized he could dispense with representation.

It is about six inches tall, the kind a country doctor might have used to dispense drugs years ago.

Lederer continues to dispense his overpowering charm and his.

AS a general rule, this column does not dispense advice.

Poorly paid, even illiterate workers dispense complex medicines.

Some salon workers dispense it to clients who go in for facials.

Those fairness concerns are vastly outweighed by the need to dispense fairness to those who were powerless to seek.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

dispense (dɪˈspɛns)

—vb (foll by with)
1.	(tr) to give out or issue in portions
2.	(tr) to prepare and distribute (medicine), esp on prescription
3.	(tr) to administer (the law, etc)
4.	to do away (with) or manage (without)
5.	to grant a dispensation to (someone) from (some obligation of church law)
6.	to exempt or excuse from a rule or obligation

usage Dispense with is sometimes wrongly used where dispose of is meant: this task can be disposed of (not dispensed with) quickly and easily

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

dispense

early 14c., from O.Fr. dispenser "give out," from L. dispensare "disburse, administer, distribute (by weight)," frequentative of dispendere "pay out," from dis- "out" + pendere "to pay, weigh" (see pendant). In M.L., dispendere was used in the ecclesiastical sense of "grant

EXPAND

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," which led to the Mod.Eng. meaning. Older sense is preserved in dispensary. Related: Dispensed; dispensing.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

dispense dis·pense (dĭ-spěns')
v. dis·pensed, dis·pens·ing, dis·pens·es
To prepare and give out medicines.

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Matching Quote

"One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action—the ability to pass directly from thought to action."

-Eric Hoffer

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