budget
noun · verb · adjective
Simple meaning
A planned amount of money, or a summary of finances
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
buhjitSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbʌdʒɪt
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.
noun
A sum of money allocated for a particular purpose
“The laboratory runs on a budget of a million a year.”
The amount of money or resources earmarked for a particular institution, activity or timeframe.
A summary of intended expenditures along with proposals for how to meet them
“The president submitted the annual budget to Congress.”
by implication
A relatively small amount of available money.
An itemized summary of intended expenditure; usually coupled with expected revenue.
verb
Make a budget
intransitive
To construct or draw up a budget.
transitive
To provide funds, allow for in a budget.
transitive
To plan for the use of in a budget.
adjective
Appropriate to a restricted budget.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A sum of money allocated for a particular purpose
Used this way, budget is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“The laboratory runs on a budget of a million a year.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “budget of …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: budget of …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Sum / relativelynoun
“The laboratory runs on a budget of a million a year.”
Summary / itemizednoun
“The president submitted the annual budget to Congress.”
More ways to use budget
- “The laboratory runs on a budget of a million a year.”noun
- “The president submitted the annual budget to Congress.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Related to a sum of money allocated for a particular purpose.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The act of reducing budgeted expenditures.
An excess of expenditures over revenues.
Calculate enough money for.
The expense of maintaining property (e.g., paying property taxes and utilities and insurance).
Thinks about unfortunate things that might happen.
The executive agency that advises the President on the federal budget.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- spendingnoun
- expenditurenoun
- fundingnoun
- fiscaladjective
- allocationnoun
- appropriationnoun
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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.