What does expensed mean?
"Expensed" is the past tense and past participle of the verb "expense," meaning that a cost has been charged to a company's or organization's account — most often so the person who paid will be reimbursed. It is chiefly a business and workplace term: employees say they expensed a taxi fare, a client dinner, or a flight when those costs are billed to their employer. In accounting contexts it also means recording a purchase as an immediate operating expense rather than capitalizing it as an asset. The word carries a neutral, professional connotation and appears frequently in both formal financial reporting and casual office conversation, where phrases like "just expense it" are everyday shorthand. Its usefulness lies in capturing a specific transaction between individual spending and institutional reimbursement that ordinary words like "paid" or "bought" do not convey.
To charge a business-related cost against one's employer's or a company's account, usually for reimbursement.
"He expensed his meals during the week-long training seminar."
Most common in business and workplace register; often used reflexively in casual speech as "expense something."
(Accounting) To record an expenditure as an operating expense rather than as a capitalized asset.
"The firm expensed all research costs incurred during the quarter."
In corporate English you don't just buy lunch — you "expense" it, turning a verb born in the 1600s into modern office shorthand.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of expensed
"Expensed" derives from "expense," which entered English via Anglo-Norman and Old French "expense" from Late Latin "expensa," the feminine past participle of Latin "expendere," meaning "to weigh out or pay." The verb "to expense" developed in English by the seventeenth century, originally meaning simply to spend or use up money. Its modern sense — charging a cost to an employer's account — became established with twentieth-century business practice and corporate expense accounts.
Related word forms
How expensed is actually used
Primarily used in business, accounting, and workplace contexts. Common in both British and American English; especially frequent in informal office speech such as "I'll expense that."
Easily confused with expensed
"Expensed" is a verb form meaning charged to an expense account, while "expensive" is an adjective meaning costing a lot of money.