budget
Pluralbudgets
Verbbudgets, budgeting, budgeted
Pluralbudgets
Formsbudgets, budgeting, budgeted
- 1The amount of money or resources set aside for a particular institution, activity, or period of time.
Most of the department's annual budget goes to salaries and benefits.
Their marketing budget shrank when sales fell short.
UsageCommon partners: a tight or limited budget, stay within budget, go over budget, a budget of $5,000.
Similarallocation, allowance
- 2A detailed, itemized statement of planned spending, usually presented alongside the revenue expected to cover it.
Congress debated the federal budget line by line.
She drew up a budget showing each project's costs against forecast income.
Similarestimate
- 3A comparatively small amount of money available to be spent.
Traveling on a modest budget, they avoided expensive restaurants.
You can still eat well in this city on a budget if you know where to look.
UsageMost often in on a budget, also on a modest or tight budget: eat well on a budget.
Note
Here smallness enters by implication. Nothing in the word says small, yet being on a budget usually means being short of money. It differs from the allocated sum, which can be generous or even unlimited. The listener supplies the smallness from context.
- 4Designed to be inexpensive and suited to limited spending.
The budget version of the phone lacks a few features but costs far less.
Families on vacation often choose budget accommodations.
UsageUsually goes before a noun: a budget airline, budget hotels, the budget version.
Similarcheap, inexpensive, affordable, low-cost
Oppositeluxury, premium, expensive, upmarket
Note
Formed from the noun used before another noun, as in budget airline, budget accommodations, or "a classic budget game" in Your Sinclair in 1991. It works as a market label for things priced for people with little to spend.
- 5To plan how money, time, or other resources will be spent, drawing up a budget for them.
Every January she sits down and budgets the household's income for the whole year.
Couples who budget together tend to argue less about money.
Similarplan
- 6To provide funds for something, or allow for it within a budget.
Management budgeted enough cash to cover the holiday bonuses.
We budget extra resources for unexpected delays.
UsageName the money, then for and the purpose: budget extra cash for bonuses. The passive is common: the project was budgeted at $2 million.
Less common meanings
- 7A wallet, purse, or small bag for carrying money or belongings.
The king holds up a hand to the lute player: ‘Thank you, leave us.’ The boy stuffs his music back into his budget and goes out backwards.
2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the LightNote
The literal pouch the word began as, the bag behind the money sense. Spenser spells it bouget in The Faerie Queene (1590), where treasure is drawn out of one. The sense is no longer current, but historical fiction revives it for period color. In Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light (2020), a lute player stuffs his music into his budget. Use it only in settings that old.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Budget began as a word for a small bag or pouch, from which its financial meaning developed. dictionnaire.enap.ca
- Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, whose first three books were first published in 1590. en.wikisource.org
- Spenser uses the spelling bouget for a bag from which treasure is drawn. en.wiktionary.org
- Hilary Mantel wrote The Mirror and the Light, first published in 2020. en.wikipedia.org
- Mantel's novel depicts a lute player putting his music into his budget, illustrating a historical-fiction revival of the bag sense. en.wiktionary.org
- 8A compact bundle or collection of items grouped together.
I set off, therefore, in high spirits, for I felt that I had done good work and was bringing back a fine budget of news for my companions.
1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost WorldNote
The bag gives way to what fills it, a bundle gathered and carried together. Arthur Conan Doyle's narrator in The Lost World (1912) brings back "a fine budget of news" for his companions. The use is obsolete now. A modern reader hears the financial meaning first, so it suits only deliberately old-fashioned prose, and usually with news or papers as its contents.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The collection sense developed from the bag and its contents. en.wikisource.org
- Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Lost World, first published in 1912. en.wikipedia.org
- The narrator uses the exact phrase “a fine budget of news” about news he is bringing back for his companions. gutenberg.org
- 9A socket, usually on a cavalry saddle, that holds the lower end of a carbine.
Note
A cavalryman's term from the days of the mounted carbine: the fitting that took the weapon's lower end so it rode steady at the trooper's side. It belongs to military history, and the term is now obsolete. In historical writing, let context explain it, since most readers will reach for the financial meaning. Like the old pouch sense, it names a holder rather than a sum.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Budget historically named a socket supporting a cavalry carbine. en.wiktionary.org
- The fitting supported the weapon's lower end and prevented excessive movement beside the rider. royalarmouries.org
- The old pouch sense also denotes a container. en.wiktionary.org
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Origin
The word first shows up in 1432, as Middle English bogett ("leather pouch"). It was taken from Old French bougette, a diminutive of bouge ("leather bag, wallet"), which came from Late Latin bulga ("leather bag"). Behind that lie Gaulish *bolgā and, at the root, Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ-, a root the Germanic languages share; belly is related.