Other forms: dispensed, dispensing, dispenses
To dispense is to hand out, or to make up and give medicine. Dispense advice, dispense a prescription, a dispensing chemist.
The pharmacy sense is the technical one: to dispense a prescription is to prepare and supply it, which is a regulated act. Dispense with means something quite different — to do away with, as in dispense with the formalities.
1verbdispenseTo hand out, or to make up and give medicine.
“The machine in the hall dispenses hot drinks and snacks.”
dispense is a handing out.
Latin dispensare means to weigh out or distribute — dis, apart, plus pendere, to weigh.
Latin
dispenso — to weigh out, pay out, distribute, regulate, manage, control, dispense
Old French
dispenser
English, today
dispense
Built from
From Middle English -, from Old French dispenser, from Latin dispenso (“to weigh out, pay out, distribute, regulate, manage, control, dispense”), frequentative of dispendo (“to weigh out”), from dis- (“apart”) + pendo (“to weigh”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA