afford
verb
Simple meaning
To have enough money or time for something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhfawrdSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈfɔɹd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To incur, stand, or bear without serious detriment, as an act which might under other circumstances be injurious; (usually after an expression of ability, as could, able, difficult) to be able or rich enough; to spare.
To give, grant, or confer, with a remoter reference to its being the natural result; to provide; to furnish.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To give, grant, or confer, with a remoter reference to its being the natural result; to provide; to furnish.
Used this way, afford is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use afford
- “We can't afford to send our children to college.”verb
- “I can't afford to spend two hours with this person.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.