Meaning & use
disbursed
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“disbursed” is a form of “disburse”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
verbtransitiveformalfinance
The past tense and past participle of disburse: paid out money from a fund or account, usually in an official way.
Grammar: Takes an object: the bank disbursed the loan.
Patterns
- disburse something to someone
- disburse something from something
The bank disbursed the first part of the loan on Monday.
The charity disbursed grants to forty small schools.
Funds were disbursed in three equal payments over the year.
adjectivebefore a nounformalfinance
Describing money that has already been paid out from a fund or account.
Grammar: Used before a noun in reports: disbursed funds.
The total disbursed amount was listed in the annual report.
Auditors checked every disbursed payment against an invoice.
Only disbursed funds count towards the project's spending.
Word forms
| base form | disburse |
|---|---|
| third person singular | disburses |
| -ing form | disbursing |
Common combinations
- disbursed funds
- All disbursed funds must be accounted for.
- loan was disbursed
- The loan was disbursed directly to the college.
- disbursed in installments
- The grant was disbursed in installments over two years.
- promptly disbursed
- Claims are promptly disbursed once approved.
- disbursed to recipients
- Aid was disbursed to recipients within a week.
Synonyms and how they differ
- paid out
- Paid out is the everyday equivalent, but disbursed sounds more official and suggests money released from a managed fund.
- distributed
- Distributed stresses sharing among many people, while disbursed focuses on the release of money.
- spent
- Spent means used up on something, whereas disbursed only says the money was paid out, not how it was used.
- dispensed
- Dispensed is common for medicine or cash from a machine and is less tied to formal funds.
Opposites
Word family
- disburse verb
- to pay money out of a fund
- disbursement noun
- a payment, or the act of paying out
- disbursing adjective
- responsible for paying out funds
- reimburse verb
- to pay back money that someone spent
Commonly confused: disbursed or dispersed? disbursed or reimbursed?
disbursed vs dispersed
Dispersed means scattered over an area, and has no connection to payments, despite the similar sound.
disbursed vs reimbursed
Reimbursed means paid back to someone who had already spent their own money, while disbursed means paid out in the first place.
Practice
The foundation ___ the grant to the school in two payments.
Choose one answer.
Disbursed means paid out from a fund. Dispersed sounds similar but means scattered, so it does not fit a grant.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “disbursed”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.