# finance

Pronunciation: US say "FY-nans" /ˈfaɪnæns/; UK say "fi-NANS" /fɪˈnæns/

## Noun

1. The work or practice of handling money, investments, and other assets.
   - Simple: The job of looking after money and other things people own.
   - _She built a career in finance after graduating with an economics degree._
   - _Sound finance requires balancing income against spending._
3. The money available to a person or organization, especially to a government or a business.
   - Simple: The money that a person, a family, a company, or a government has to use.
   - _The minister warned that the nation's finances were in worse shape than voters had been told._
   - _The expansion was put on hold until the company could secure finance from its backers._
4. An arrangement such as a loan or installment terms that lets a customer buy an item without paying the full amount immediately. *(British)*
   - Simple: A loan or plan that lets you buy something now and pay for it later.
   - _The dealership advertised zero-percent finance on all new models._
   - _Customers can spread the cost by arranging finance at checkout._
5. The branch of study concerned with how money and other assets are managed.
   - Simple: The study of how to manage money and other valuable things.
   - _Modern finance draws heavily on mathematics and statistics._
   - _He published several papers in the field of finance._

## Verb

2. To provide or obtain the money needed for a purchase, project, or undertaking, or to raise and manage funds for it.
   - Simple: To pay for something or find the money for it, such as a project, business, or purchase.
   - _The government will finance the bridge project through bonds._
   - _Investors agreed to finance the startup's expansion._

## Verb

6. To extort a ransom from a captive in exchange for their release. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To force someone to pay money in return for their freedom.
7. To pay a ransom to secure a captive's release. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To pay money so that a captured person can go free.

## Origin

This comes from Middle English finaunce, from Anglo-Norman and Middle French finance, from finer ("to pay ransom"), from fin ("end"), from Latin fīnis. The original English sense around 1400 was "ending"; through French influence it came to mean settling a debt, then "ransom" (mid 15th century) and "taxation" (late 15th century). The sense of "manage money" was first recorded around 1770.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/finance (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).