The action of spending funds or the amounts of money spent; costs or expenses incurred.
From Latin 'expendere' meaning 'to weigh out' or 'pay out,' formed from 'ex-' (out) + 'pendere' (to weigh). The connection to weighing reflects ancient commerce where precious metals were weighed for payment.
The root connection to 'weighing out' reveals how ancient commerce literally involved measuring value by weight, usually of precious metals. Modern accounting still uses the fundamental concept that expenditures must be carefully measured and recorded, just as ancient merchants weighed their payments.
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