What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Purchase vs Spend - What's the difference?

purchase | spend |

As nouns the difference between purchase and spend

is that purchase is the act or process of seeking and obtaining something (e.g. property, etc. while spend is amount spent (during a period), expenditure.

As verbs the difference between purchase and spend

is that purchase is to pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire while spend is to pay out (money).

purchase

English

Noun

  • (obsolete) The act or process of seeking and obtaining something (e.g. property, etc.)
  • * Beaumont and Fletcher
  • I'll get meat to have thee, / Or lose my life in the purchase .
  • An individual item one has purchased.
  • The acquisition of title to, or property in, anything for a price; buying for money or its equivalent.
  • They offer a free hamburger with the purchase of a drink.
  • That which is obtained, got or acquired, in any manner, honestly or dishonestly; property; possession; acquisition.
  • That which is obtained for a price in money or its equivalent.
  • He was pleased with his latest purchase .
  • (uncountable) Any mechanical hold or advantage, applied to the raising or removing of heavy bodies, as by a lever, a tackle or capstan.
  • It is hard to get purchase on a nail without a pry bar or hammer.
  • The apparatus, tackle or device by which such mechanical advantage is gained and in nautical terminology the ratio of such a device, like a pulley, or block and tackle.
  • (rock climbing, uncountable) The amount of hold one has from an individual foothold or ledge.
  • (legal, dated) Acquisition of lands or tenements by means other than descent or inheritance, namely, by one's own act or agreement.
  • (Blackstone)

    Derived terms

    * purchase order * repurchase

    Verb

    (purchas)
  • To pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire.
  • * Spenser
  • that loves the thing he cannot purchase
  • * Shakespeare
  • Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.
  • * Shakespeare
  • His faults hereditary / Rather than purchased .
  • To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent.
  • to purchase''' land'', ''to '''purchase a house
  • To obtain by any outlay, as of labor, danger, or sacrifice, etc.
  • to purchase favor with flattery
  • * Shakespeare
  • One poor retiring minute / Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends.
  • To expiate by a fine or forfeit.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Not tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
  • To apply to (anything) a device for obtaining a mechanical advantage; to get a purchase' upon, or apply a ' purchase to.
  • to purchase a cannon
  • To put forth effort to obtain anything; to strive; to exert oneself.
  • * Ld. Berners
  • Duke John of Brabant purchased greatly that the Earl of Flanders should have his daughter in marriage.
  • To constitute the buying power for a purchase, have a trading value.
  • ''Many aristocratic refugees' portable treasures purchased their safe passage and comfortable exile during the revolution

    Synonyms

    * (buy) procure

    Derived terms

    * purchable * purchasing agent * purchasing power

    spend

    English

    Verb

  • To pay out (money).
  • *
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-25, volume=407, issue=8837, page=74, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= No hiding place , passage=In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result.}}
  • To bestow; to employ; often with on'' or ''upon .
  • * (George Herbert) (1593-1633)
  • Iam never loath / To spend my judgment.
  • (label) To squander.
  • To exhaust, to wear out.
  • * (Richard Knolles) (1545-1610)
  • their bodies spent with long labour and thirst
  • To consume, to use up (time).
  • * 1661 , , The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond
  • During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant
  • *, chapter=13
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=We tiptoed into the house, up the stairs and along the hall into the room where the Professor had been spending so much of his time.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)
  • , title= Geothermal Energy , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame.}}
  • To have an orgasm; to ejaculate sexually.
  • (label) To waste or wear away; to be consumed.
  • * (Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
  • The sound spendeth and is dissipated in the open air.
  • To be diffused; to spread.
  • * (Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
  • The vines that they use for wine are so often cut, that their sap spendeth into the grapes.
  • (label) To break ground; to continue working.
  • Derived terms

    * spending money * spendthrift * spent force

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Amount spent (during a period), expenditure
  • I’m sorry, boss, but the advertising spend exceeded the budget again this month.
  • (pluralized) expenditures; money or pocket money.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , date = 2011-02-01 , first = Ami , last = Sedghi , title = Record breaking January transfers: find the spends by club , newspaper = The Guardian , url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/feb/01/january-transfer-spend-record-high-torres , passage = Total January spends by year }}
  • * {{quote-web
  • , year = 2011 , title = Council spending over £500 , site = Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council , url = http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/business_and_employment/tenders_and_contracts/council_spending_over_£500.aspx , accessdate = 2012-01-26 , passage = The spends have been made by our strategic partners ... }}
  • Discharged semen
  • Vaginal discharge