spend-eyo-
“to keep weighing out, expending”spend, dispense, expense, pension
Iterative of *spend- giving Latin expendere/dispensāre, English spend, dispense, expense, pension.
Discussion
The Proto-Indo-European form *spend-eyo- is a causative-iterative derivative meaning "to keep weighing out, to expend repeatedly," built on a base *spend- "to weigh, to pull, to draw out" with the *-eyo- suffix marking sustained action. Pokorny (IEW 988–989) reconstructs the family under *(s)pen(d)- with core semantics of pulling, stretching, and weighing. The root entered Latin as spendere and its prefixed compounds expendere "to weigh out money," from which the entire English vocabulary of fiscal disbursement descends: spend, expense, expenditure, dispense ("to weigh out in portions"), compensate ("to weigh together, to balance accounts"), and pension (originally a periodic payment "weighed out" to a dependent). The form suspend, literally "to hang beneath" by weighing, shows how the physical image of a balance scale generated both financial and spatial metaphors. Rix treats the verbal base as reflecting the concrete act of using a balance — pulling down one pan with measured weight — and the *-eyo- extension as marking the repeated commercial act of paying out coin by weight. Watkins connects the root to the broader semantic field of spinning and drawing out thread, suggesting that the original image may have been the drawing out of fiber, which then transferred to the drawing out of measured weight. The root thus preserves a remarkable archaeological fact: that weighing and spending were once the same act, a time before coinage when every transaction required a merchant to place raw metal on a balance and draw it out until the scales hung even.