What does spent mean?
Spent is chiefly the past tense and past participle of spend and an adjective meaning used up, consumed, or exhausted. In its verb use, it reports that money, time, effort, or another resource has been expended: she spent the afternoon reading. It can also describe something depleted or worn out, as in a spent battery, or someone who appears thoroughly tired. A second, more formal adjectival sense means devoted or given to a purpose, as in a life spent in public service, where the word signals dedication rather than mere use. The form is fully standard in British and American English and often sounds more final or consequential than used: the funds were spent suggests that no money remains available. Applied to people, spent can carry emotional weight by implying profound fatigue. Because it functions as both a verb form and a participial adjective, its meaning depends heavily on syntactic position. Its Latin ancestry links it to expend, expense, and expensive, reflecting the long history of this word for resources consumed.
Exhausted or depleted; used up or consumed; devoted or given to a purpose.
"The exhausted volunteers spent the final hours distributing supplies."
The past tense and past participle of spend, used with money, time, effort, resources, or other things regarded as consumable.
"By December, the charity had spent more than half of its annual budget."
In this use, spent is a regular irregular past form of spend and functions syntactically as a finite or participial verb form.
Spent has a double life: it is both the past tense of spend and an adjective for something exhausted or used up.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does spent come from?
The verb descends from Old English spendan, which was borrowed through Old French from Latin expendere, a word originally meaning to weigh out and later to expend or consume. The same Latin verb produced English cognates such as expend, expense, and expensive. The modern form spent serves both as the past tense and past participle of spend and as a participial adjective derived from its sense of exhaustion or use.
Related word forms
How spent is actually used
Spent is standard in formal and informal British and American English. As a participial adjective, it commonly occurs after a linking verb or directly before a noun; when applied to a person, it may suggest profound physical or emotional exhaustion.