| / English Dictionary |
DISPENSED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Distributed or weighted out in carefully determined portions
Example:
medicines dispensed to the sick
Classified under:
Similar:
distributed (spread out or scattered about or divided up)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb dispense
Context examples:
Emma and Harriet professed very high expectations of pleasure from it; and Mr. Weston, unasked, promised to get Frank over to join them, if possible; a proof of approbation and gratitude which could have been dispensed with.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
He cantered on as he spoke, while Alleyne, having dispensed two more pence, left the old dame standing by the furthest cottage of Hordle, with her shrill voice raised in blessings instead of revilings.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
And from such largess, dispensed from his future, Martin turned and took his one good suit of clothes to the pawnshop.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
A unit of measure of volume defined as the amount of liquid dispensed as one drop from a dropper dispenser.
(Drop, NCI Thesaurus)
Martin dispensed royal largess, inviting everybody up, farm-hands, a stableman, and the gardener's assistant from the hotel, the barkeeper, and the furtive hobo who slid in like a shadow and like a shadow hovered at the end of the bar.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths so that he could "come over" some afternoon to a stranger's garden.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
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